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PRESENTi;!) BY 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 

NATURAL MORALITY 

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 

ELWOOD SMITH MOSER 



COIXEGEVILLE, PA. 
1919 



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TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

MY DEPARTED SON 

LIEUTENANT 

FREDERICK EeROY MOSER 



CONTENTS 








Page 


Fundamental Conceptions ..... i 


Nature ...... 






9 


Is There Design in Nature? 






IO 


Cause and Effect .... 






15 


Evolution ...... 






17 


The Universe ..... 






21 


The Solar System .... 






24 


The Earth 






28 


Life 






35 


Evolution and Man .... 






38 


Matter and Mind .... 






5i 


Natural Morality .... 






55 


Reason and Morals .... 






62 


Materialism ..... 






66 


Reflections Upon Human Existence 






70 








73 


Theology the Foe of Human Progress 






81 








103 








122 


Why Unbelief? .... 






128 


The Church of the Future 






148 


Ideas of God 






170 


Immortality ...... 






177 








186 








192 



Vll 



INTRODUCTION 

It is the serious duty of every rational human being 
to help make the earth a better and happier abiding 
place. This duty is imposed by the very nature of 
human existence — by the constructive and destruc- 
tive influences which determine the weal and woe of hu- 
manity, individually and collectively. Knowledge, how- 
ever circumscribed, pertaining to these natural influ- 
ences, enabled primitive man to devise crude, though 
effective, ways of obtaining subsistence, and to de- 
fend himself against enemies threatening his well- 
being and his life. His participation in evolutionary 
processes resulted in contributions to the advance- 
ment that culminated, through successive generations, 
in civilizations more than a hundred thousand years 
later. Without these contributions evolutionary pro- 
gress, humanly speaking, would have been impossible. 
In his struggle for existence, in his constructive efforts, 
man of the twentieth century encounters the same de- 
structive influences, manifested in quite different ways, 
which beset his remote ancestors. Effects have always 
been just equal to the causes producing them; always 
will be. Those who hope to escape by chance the 
logical effects of causes deceive themselves and sooner 
or later pay the penalty of self-deception. 

Ignorance, credulity, injustice, intolerance and dis- 
honesty continue to be prominent and potent among the 
destructive influences which interpose serious obstacles 
and dangers to the progress and safety of modern so- 
ciety. Our much-vaunted civilization, with its artifici- 
alities, shams, pretenses and immoralities beclouds 

ix 



INTRODUCTION 

the intellectual and moral vision and impairs those dis- 
cernments which distinguish the always existing differ- 
ences between constructive and destructive agencies. 
The complexities of the twentieth century are elimina- 
tive of the simplicities of life and disregardful of the 
common though significant and potential facts of human 
existence. Destructive influences persist within the 
weakest parts of society, as they do within the vul- 
nerable human organism. Diseases sap the vitality 
and destroy the lives of individuals. Social dis* 
eases weaken and endanger the life of society. The 
civilization of the present, in its totality, is heading 
either toward a period of constructive betterment, or 
toward one of retrogression and ultimate disaster. It 
must proceed one way or the other. It cannot, as a 
whole, move in both directions in the same period of 
time. 

The progress of civilization requires the exercise 
of the same constructive influences which produce up- 
rightness of character in the individual units of society. 
Therefore, the varying standards of civilization, or of 
society, are determined by the average intellectual and 
moral status of a majority of its individual units. When 
the average attained by the majority is relatively high 
and stable civilization is safe; otherwise it is in danger. 

Observation, investigation and reflection concern- 
ing the more serious problems of human existence^ 
which have engaged a part of my time and attention for 
more than forty years, have strengthened within me the 
sincere and unalterable conviction that the permanent 
welfare and highest destiny of mankind can be obtained 
only by : 

First — the general and thorough application of the 
natural principles of Truth, Justice and Morality, and 
the universal exercise of Rightful Human Liberty. 

x 



INTRODUCTION 

Second — the educational enlightenment which ex- 
erts its influence toward the full enthronement of Rea- 
son and the wide and effective dissemination of the 
verified and constructive facts of science relating to all 
the known phenomena of Nature. 

Those who directly or indirectly oppose the com- 
plete enthronement of reason and the exaltation of truth 
revealed by thoroughly tested facts are the destructive 
enemies of humanity, because the reasoning function 
is of first importance in the maintenance of man at the 
apex of organic life, and because truth makes for 
rightful freedom and exact justice. Divested of reason, 
man falls below all other species of animals in impo- 
tence and helplessness. Notwithstanding this fact 
many of the activities of our race are influenced more 
by emotional and irrational impulses than by rational 
considerations. Consequently, it frequently happens 
that the emotions of even so-termed educated 
persons preclude the formation of rationally sound 
conclusions. The larger portion of humanity con- 
tinues to be inclined strongly to think by proxy and 
to remain under the control of those actuated by de- 
structive as well as by constructive influences — by lofty 
motives or by base and ignoble purposes. Incoherent 
thinking, in considerable part due to defective intellect- 
ual and moral training, or to the need of true enlighten- 
ment, is very largely responsible for the preponder- 
ating defects of the units of society. This fact cannot 
be disguised by the veneerings and shams of egoism and 
the complacency of self-satisfied claimants who pre- 
sumptiously assert authority and aim to regulate 
sundry affairs of humanity upon the basis of conclusions 
following false or defective premises regarding man's 
place in Nature. 

The central and controlling purpose prompting the 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 

preparation of this volume of essays is to con- 
tribute effort in the direction of stimulating earnest en- 
quiry and reflective thought respecting problems of the 
most serious import for the well-being of humanity. 
I venture to hope that the contents of this vol- 
ume will be subjected to critical analysis at the bar of 
reason and factual evidence, and I trust the merits and 
demerits of the various essays will be judged accord- 
ingly. No attempt has been made to exhaust the sub- 
jects treated. In a number of instances some funda- 
mental principles and basic lines are indicated. Details 
related thereto are not difficult of access to those who 
may desire additional information. 

In acknowledgment of data derived from various 
sources and incorporated in several of the essays men- 
tion is here appreciatively made of the "Miracles of 
Science" by Dr. Henry Smith Williams; "A History 
of the Warfare of Science with Theology" by Dr. 
Andrew Dickson White, late President of Cornell Uni- 
versity; "History of Gods and Religions of Ancient and 
Modern Times" by D. M. Bennett; "The Bible" and 
"The Christ" by John E. Remsburg; and the "Belief in 
God and Immortality" by James H. Leuba. 

E. S. M. 




FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 

How came the earth, other inhabitants of space, 
and man? This profound and awe-inspiring problem 
prompts the serious attention of mankind. It is, 
obviously, invested with absorbing interest and por- 
tentious significance; it arouses the deepest emotions, 
invites the wildest and wierdest flights of imagination, 
and entrances the most powerful intellects. Man is 
ever impelled by the impulses of his sensory organs 
to feel, observe, hear, and so forth; to strive to ac- 
count for his own and other existences, and thus ob- 
tain a more or less satisfactory solution of the problem. 
Two avenues have been and continue to be open to 
him. The one is that of alluring conjecture; the other 
is that of rational explanation supported by the find- 
ings of science. He cannot, simultaneously, traverse 
both. Though he may pass from one to the other, 
he habitually frequents the one that harmonizes with 
his conjectural cogitations, or, the one conclusively 
in accord with rational, verified evidence. Conjectural 
and vagaristic solutions continue to largely dominate 
the masses of mankind because of the preponderance 
of emotional influences and mere conjectures sup- 
ported by influential propagandists. Moreover, the 
human race, as a whole, is neither accustomed nor in- 
clined to reason clearly and definitely respecting the 
deeper problems that rivet the enquiring thought of 
mankind. 

1 



2 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 

In the avenue of rational investigation certain 
fundamental conceptions have come to be recognized 
as constituting the basis for the superstructure of 
science, and the philosophy of scientific evidence, by 
those who would attain an intelligible and coherent 
solution of the problem relating to the origin of the 
earth, other inhabitants of space, and man. Since the 
following conceptions bear either direct or indirect 
relation to the subjects discussed in this volume of 
essays, it is of importance that they be thoughtfully 
considered : 

SPACE : Uncreatable ; infinite in its extensions. 
TIME: Uncreatable; infinite in duration. 
MATTER: Self-existent, indestructible, eternal. 

SPACE AND TIME 

Fundamental conceptions respecting space and 
time necessitate certain definite considerations. 
Though it is apparently true that the human mind can- 
not comprehend space in its infinity, it is also true 
that the mind is utterly incapable of conceiving limita- 
tions to space in its extensions. It is just so with time 
in its infiniteness in duration. Therefore, the concep- 
tion of infinite time is conclusive. To attempt to con- 
ceive of boundaries to space or of a beginning or ending 
of time is to pave the way that leads to final considera- 
tions respecting the irresistible conceptions of illimit- 
able space and unending time. The fundamental con- 
ceptions of time and space in nowise interfere with such 
measurements and divisions of time as have been, or 
may be, found necessary for the convenient regulation 
of various affairs of mankind. Thus, our day of 
twenty-four hours denotes a period or portion of time 
about equivalent to that required for the earth to make 
one revolution upon its axis. The reduction of hours 
to minutes and seconds, or fractional parts thereof, is 



FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 3 

indicative not of limitations to infinite time, but merely 
of limitational divisions of time to meet human re- 
quirements. The measurements and divisions of space 
within humanly convenient limitations in no way con- 
flict with the fundamental conception of space as being 
infinite in its extensions. 

The concepts of space and time are independent 
or exclusive of the conception of matter. That is to 
say, it is not difficult to conceive of space and time as 
being apart from the existence of, and in no wise de- 
pending upon, matter and its movements. Locke has 
well said that "Pure space is capable of neither re- 
sistance nor motion. 

MATTER 

Matter, or substance, is something in motion — 
eternally in motion; motion resulting in ever changing 
positions of moving matter in space and time. Since it 
is impossible for a single particle of matter to move in 
more than one direction in a fractional part of space and 
time, all variations in the direction of movement must 
result in describing a definite number of straight lines. 

Matter may also be conceived as something in 
clear contradistinction to nothing; nothing being the 
absence of something. The self-existence of matter, 
and the eternity of its existence, is postulated be- 
cause of its indestructibility. The conversion of some- 
thing into nothing, or of nothing into something, is 
unthinkable. It has been proven by thousands of chem- 
ical experiments that matter cannot be destroyed. 
That which cannot be destroyed cannot be originated; 
it can neither be increased nor decreased; its 
indestructibility clearly implies the impossibility of its 
creation. Matter is eternal in existence and motion. 

Primarily, matter can do but two things: occupy 
space and move. The resultants of its simple and com- 
plex movements are: Change of position in space and 



4 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 

time and change of form — forms, representing ele- 
mental combinations of matter, being invariably the 
resultants of similar or varying arrangements or com- 
binations of individual particles. All forms of matter 
are relatively unstable and transient; always subject to 
the processes of disintegration and re-formation. 

Every phenomenon of Nature is obviously the re- 
sultant of definite movements of matter, since no phe- 
nomenon can be rationally cognized as unrelated to 
the causative effect of the movement of matter. 

Matter in its movements is constructive and de- 
structive — synthetical and analytical — respecting all 
forms or collocations, whatsoever. 

The conception that vacant space must exist be- 
tween every particle — however infinitesimal — of mat- 
ter, seems to be entirely tenable. The vibratory move- 
ments of every particle of matter in space clearly im- 
plies the existence of vacant space. The compressibil- 
ity of matter, well known to physicists, also sustains 
the conception that all the movements of matter re- 
quire the existence of unoccupied space. The "im- 
ponderable space-filling ether" predicated by some 
thinkers invites the consideration that "imponderable 
ether" must either be composed of individual particles 
of very attenuated matter, free to move; or nothing. 

Before proceeding with additional considerations 
respecting matter and its movements, it is of import- 
ance that reference be made to that which is widely 
designated as force: 

I am impelled to define force (or energy) as an 
attribute of, and not as an existing entity separate 
and apart from, matter; to regard the totality of force 
in any given mass or collocation of matter as just 
equal to the sum of the vibratory movements of its 
component particles, and, to consider the force exerted 
by any particle or mass of matter upon other particles 



FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 5 

or masses as being determined by their respective at- 
tractions or repulsions. The potent influences associ- 
ated with the attraction and repulsion of particles and 
masses of matter — forever moving in space and time 
— are the resulting causes-efficient in the formation 
of all combinations of matter, inorganic and organic. 

The attractive force of any mass of matter in space, 
be it sun or planet, is determined by its density, weight, 
rapidity of revolution upon its axis, and its distance 
from other masses. To illustrate: Consider the earth 
and its nearest neighbor and satellite, the moon. The 
earth, being the larger and heavier body, attracts (or 
pulls) the moon a greater distance earthward than 
the moon attracts the earth toward that reflector of 
the light of the sun. It is to be noted in passing that 
both the earth and moon are not only subject to their 
own reciprocal attractions, but also to all the attrac- 
tive influences of the masses of the solar system; and 
the solar system is likewise influenced in the totality 
of its movements by all other masses of matter in 
movement throughout the universe. 

Matter in motion evolves solar systems — suns, 
planets and all other masses in absolute accord with 
unchangeable mathematical principles or modes of 
movement. Matter with its pull and push necessitously 
forms the most simple inorganic aggregation of par- 
ticles, as well as the most complex organic structures. 
Thus, matter in movement, formed all existing suns 
and planets and smaller masses in space, and moving 
matter is manifested by the attenuated, incandescent, 
nebulous matter of future suns and planets. Again, 
matter in complexity of movement and atomic-molec- 
ular structure is phenomenally revealed by the brain 
of man. 

The movements of matter, always along lines of 
least resistance, result in eternally integrating and dis- 



6 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 

integrating aggregations or masses of matter. These 
movements, as involved in the formation, life, death, 
disintegration, and rebirth of solar systems and plan- 
ets, require periods of inconceivable duration. 

Until recent times the generally accepted concep- 
tion of the ultimate unit of matter was the atom, the 
chief feature of Dalton's treatise on chemistry being 
that the atoms of the same element are exactly alike 
in mass and other properties, though different from 
the atoms of any other kind of element. The more 
modern conception of the ultimate unit is the electron; 
no less a material conception than the atom of matter. 
The electron is defined "as the smallest existence 
known capable of isolation and free movement through 
space." It is estimated as having one thousandth of 
the mass of a hydrogen atom — the hydrogen atom 
being the lightest among all the chemical units. The 
present conception of physicists appears to strongly 
favor the conclusion that the ultimate unit of matter, 
in its last analysis, is electrical in character. Augusto 
Righi, of the University of Bologna, in treating of 
the constitution of matter in his "Modern Theory of 
Physical Phenomena, ,, says: * * * "Therefore it 
may be admitted that a material atom is nothing but a 
system consisting of a certain number of positive and 
an equal number of negative electrons, and that the 
latter, or at least some of them, move about the remain- 
ing portion like satellites. Molecular and atomic forces 
would then be nothing but the manifestations of the 
electromagnetic forces of the electrons, and gravitation 
itself might be explained with these concepts as a 
basis. In fact, this has already been attempted. If we 
suppose one or more negative electrons to be taken 
away from an atom, it becomes a positive ion, while 
the addition of one of more negative electrons to a 
neutral atom produces a negative ion. * * * The 



FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 7 

electrons would seem to be, therefore, the elements 
of construction in the architecture of the atoms. ,, 

The eternal movements of matter involve homo- 
geneous (simple) and heterogeneous (complex) ele- 
mental combinations in orderly sequence — from homo- 
geneity to heterogeneity, and from heterogeneity to 
homogeneity; from nebulous matter to suns and plan- 
ets, from inorganic combinations of matter to living 
organisms. The everlasting processes revealed by the 
simple and complex movements of matter — construc- 
tive (synthetical) and destructive (analytical) consti- 
tute the cause-efficient of all forms of matter, inanimate 
and animate, in existence in boundless space and in- 
finite time. 

The highest known form of inorganic matter is 
that of the diamond, which exhibits the arrangement 
of similar atoms (carbon) in definite, mathematical 
order. Diamonds were formed in the formative period 
of the earth, under conditions requiring great heat and 
pressure. Pure coal is also composed of atoms of car- 
bon. What a vast difference in atomic arrangement! 
On the other hand, the highest form of organic mat- 
ter is the brain of man, a collocation of complex, differ- 
entiated and co-ordinating cells derived from simple 
protoplasm — the basis of all vegetable and organic life. 

Matter in masses (largeness) and matter in its 
smallness and indivisibility — representing the macro- 
cosm and microcosm of the universe — transcends the 
comprehension of man. Knowledge respecting the con- 
stitution of matter and the phenomena caused by its 
movements is derived from critical analyses and com- 
parisons of observational data within varying limits. 
These limits have been extended from time to time, 
yet infinity lies beyond, in a macrocosmic and micro- 
cosmic sense. However, within the boundaries 
noted man has formulated conceptions through which 



8 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 

are comprehended certain definite, orderly, mathemati- 
cal processes of matter in motion, simple and complex, 
and in so far as these conceptions are verified by num- 
erous similar observations they clearly, inductively, and 
unmistakably support the conclusion that the processes 
of matter in motion throughout the universe, and be- 
yond, are universally identical in character. Moreover, 
such verified conceptions are found to be absolutely 
dependable as instrumentalities of vast and benign im- 
port to mankind. 




NATURE 

THE TERM NATURE COMPREHENDS THE PRO- 
CESSES OF MATTER IN MOTION THROUGHOUT THE 
UNIVERSE IN ACCORD WITH ETERNALLY FIXED 
PRINCIPLES OR MODES OF MOVEMENT. THE PHE- 
NOMENA OF NATURE ARE SEQUENCES OR EX- 
PRESSIONS OF THE ACTIVITIES OF COLLOCATIONS 
OF MATTER. 

THE EXISTENCE OF THE SUPERNATURAL, OF 
A POWER BEYOND OR EXTRANEOUS TO NATURE 
IS NOT ADMISSABLE FROM THE VIEW-POINT OF 
DEMONSTRABLE EVIDENCE BASED UPON ALL THE 
VERIFIED FACTS THUS FAR WITHIN REACH OF 
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 

MAN KNOWS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT 
THE SUPERNATURAL, KNOWS NOT ANYTHING 
WITH RELATION TO ANYTHING THAT MAY TRAN- 
SCEND NATURE, AS PHENOMENALLY MANIFESTED 
BY MATTER IN MOTION, AS COGNIZED BY THE SEN- 
SORY ORGANS OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. 
THOSE WHO AFFIRM THE EXISTENCE OF THE 
SUPERNATURAL ARE OUTSIDE THE REALM OF 
THE KNOWLEDGE OF FACTS — BEYOND KNOWN 
TRUTH. SUCH AFFIRMATION IS PURE CONJECTURE. 
CONJECTURE IS NOT EVIDENCE. MERE FAN- 
TASIES OF THE BRAIN OF MAN MAY BE PLEAS- 
UREABLE, BUT THEY ARE NOT RELIABLE. FRE- 
QUENTLY THEY ARE DANGEROUS, AND THERE- 
FORE TO BE DISTRUSTED. 

THE BOOK OF NATURE IS OPEN TO ALL WHO 
CHOOSE TO STUDY ITS PAGES AND GAIN WISDOM 
AND UNDERSTANDING. 



IS THERE DESIGN IN NATURE ? 



Design is introduced into the world by the reflecting 
reason, which thereafter is startled by a miracle of 
its own creation. — Kant. 

Is there design in Nature? That is, are the op- 
erations of Nature — to which the infinite variety of 
phenomena presented to the senses are due — in accord- 
ance with designs previously, or from time to time, 
decreed by an omnipresent, superintending Intelli- 
gence; the intelligence of a supreme being or architect 
of the universe? 

Even many persons who are inclined to think 
seriously upon the problem of existence and attending 
whys and wherefores are inclined to entertain the idea 
of a designer. The apparent adaption of means to 
ends revealed by the multiplied phenomena arising from 
natural processes is easily assumed to be the outcome 
of divine wisdom, previous design, or present inter- 
position; the fruition of "purposes of divine origin." 
Though the diverging views entertained upon the 
question of design — where it begins and where it ends 
— are manifold, the leaders of metaphysical thought 
(theologians .included) are agreed — however vague 
their conceptions — that in some mysterious way all 
the affairs of this world are regulated and controlled 
by a personal (anthropomorphic) God, endowed with 
enlarged human attributes. There are others who pos- 

10 



IS THERE DESIGN IN NATURE? 11 

tulate that designing intelligence is not involved in 
any personal sense whatever; that such intelligence 
pervades the material world as a "spirit-factor" and 
designer. 

Omitting what would be a wholly futile attempt 
to imagine the infinite physical proportions of an an- 
thropomorphic designer, or an attempt to define just 
what is meant by "spirit," I respectfully present the 
following considerations for the thoughtful consider- 
ation of readers : 

Necessity — inherent in the inexorable relation- 
ship existing between cause and effect respecting 
every phenomenon which the senses take cognizance 
of, obviously negatives the assumption with regard 
to either a personal or impersonal designer. Water 
does not seek its level, the tides do not ebb and flow, 
the earth does not revolve upon its axis or describe 
its orbit in space, nor does the sun shine, or the moon 
reflect the light of the sun — in accordance with the 
designs of a personal or super-personal agency; for in 
every instance the necessity for the manifestations of 
the phenomena referred to is inherently involved in 
the self-determined movements of matter. Necessity 
is the all-sufficient factor involved in the orderly suc- 
cession of causes and effects. It would therefore seem 
entirely clear that the interposition of design, general 
or special, is a superfluous procedure, and that the 
assumption of any such agency arises from compari- 
sons based upon false and untenable premises. 

The unyielding necessity inherent in the mathe- 
matical precision of all natural operations has impelled 
organisms of higher and lower development to distin- 
guish differences everywhere about them, and to dis- 
cern more or less clearly some of the relationships in- 
volved. The same necessity has given rise to special 
individual effort to cling tenaciously to things of ad- 



12 IS THERE DESIGN IN NATURE? 

vantage to the individual in the inexorable struggle 
for existence. In the natural operations or processes, 
always efficiently involved in the development of the 
individual, human design, intention, or purpose came 
to be recognized as an important factor in determin- 
ing and directing the actions of men. As he did not ap- 
preciate natural processes resulting in human design 
or purpose, nor take into account that desires, designs 
and purposes are invariably the resultants of condi- 
tions or states of brain matter, it is not surprising that 
earlier man should, in the absence of scientific data, 
imaginatively personify, with enlarged human attri- 
butes, the greater power perceived about him. It 
was observed that by doing certain things certain re- 
sults would follow; by observing multifarious phenom- 
ena of Nature man concluded that "God" designed 
and caused all that he saw — all that his senses 
took cognizance of; that it was "God's will" that water 
courses down hill, that men live and die. In later 
times (though the childhood of the human race, as a 
whole, has not yet passed) the imagination and artistic 
ingenuity of metaphysicians has applied to the theory 
of design many attractive colors to invite the attention, 
worship, and adoration, of the multitudes. Even now, 
many supporters of the theory of supernatural de- 
sign, essaying much wisdom from on high, and pro- 
fessing a considerable knowledge of the affairs of life, 
and laying claim to scientific information, will point 
to some specific development, animal or vegetable, as 
typifying in organic structure and function unquestion- 
able evidences of design and of the existence of a de- 
signer. What they affirm is readily assented to, with- 
out thought or investigation, by others. 

Let us consider a few facts in relation to man — 
the highest developed organism — concerning the 
theory of design : From protoplasmic units, elaborated 



IS THERE DESIGN IN NATURE? 13 

from simple elementary substa.nces, to the monera, 
and from monera to man, there has been evolved an 
orderly succession of changes, and every change along 
the entire line of development from the simple to the 
complex in physical structure stands for a series of 
effects just equal to the casues producing them. 
Furthermore every change in the various forms or col- 
locations of matter has been wholly due to poten- 
tial (inherent) energy, and energy (environmental) 
from without. The advocate of design may interpose 
this argument: "Is not the very action, per se, re- 
ferred to, in keeping with a comprehensive theory of 
design? The answer is, no; for the all-sufficient rea- 
son that the introduction of design, apart from being 
superfluous and useless in arriving at a relatively ac- 
curate solution of the great problems of organic devel- 
opment, only adds another element to explain, and 
therefore obscures scientific investigation. Further- 
more, propositions supported only by mere assumptions 
must be ruled out as evidence. Particles of matter 
attract and repel each other because they can behave 
in no other way, and no designing intelligence can 
vary natural, mathematical modes of material action. 
Moreover, the introduction of design throws upon its 
claimants the burden of explaining or illustrating the 
relative nature and character of the designer, and of 
showing how the primary and other movements of 
matter could not be sustained in the absence of such 
designer. 

It is frequently urged in criticism against those 
who have devoted the best years of their lives to the in- 
vestigation of natural phenomena that they are guilty 
of "attempting to put God out of the world," and of 
endeavoring to set aside the purposiveness of will rep- 
resented in a divine plan! The searchers after truths 
inhering in Nature have had and have no such object 



14 IS THERE DESIGN IN NATURE? 

in view. They have followed and continue to follow 
where indisputable evidence leads the way. They have 
impartially and with no disrespect analyzed the 
claims of anthropomorphists and spiritists. Thus 
far they have been entirely unable to find or discern 
the need of purposive design, and all they do know 
from relatively conclusive evidence flatly contradicts 
the assumption of the existence of such design. 

An earnest and well-meaning disciple of the theory 
of design may interrogate: "Where does man's re- 
sponsibility rest under your process of reasoning?" 
And where I rejoin, does man's "responsibility rest 
under" your assumptions. Carry your theory of de- 
sign to its logical conclusion and all the acts of every 
human being are just what they are designed to be, 
and can be nothing else — notwithstanding the assump- 
tion of "free-will." From the rational viewpoint, there 
is much to expect and hope for in the ascertainment of 
knowledge as to the natural, orderly processes concern- 
ing the origin and evolutionary development of the hu- 
man organism. Obviously so, for by cognizing Na- 
ture's modes of multifarious movement, however com- 
plex, human knowledge has been, and is being, turned 
to vast practical account in elevating and substantially 
bettering human conditions and establishing man's re- 
sponsibility to man, without assuming the least modifi- 
cation of a single principle of necessitous physical ac- 
tion. Further elucidation from this point of view will 
be found on subsequent pages under the heading — 
Natural Morality. 




CAUSE AND EFFECT 

Nature's inexorable processes reveal the potential- 
ities of cause and effect. They are devoid of chance or 
caprice. Every effect is just equal to the cause pro- 
ducing it. Nature deals in no compromises. It sup- 
ports no court of appeal. It is man's province, limita- 
tionally, to avail himself of knowledge respecting nat- 
ural causes and effects, to cognize the natural relation- 
ships which affect him, to discern causal and effectual 
influences and exert himself, adaptatively. Nature, per 
se, has no concern for man, but man must be concerned 
about Nature, because such concern, involving causes 
and effects, is absolutely essential to his existence. Na- 
ture entertains no excuses for man's ignorance of 
natural processes ; no consideration for man-made gods. 
It is man's task to become informed respecting natural 
causes and effects or suffer the consequences of his ig- 
norance. He may, in a sense, attune himself to the 
rythmic movements of the earth and of the universe; 
that is his affair. The earth and the universe take no 
note of him. 

*p *p ^ ^ 

Those who associate chance, caprice, or design with 
the processes of Nature must hypothetically divest 
such processes of the mathematical precision of the 
movements of matter, thus hypothetically contradicting 
all that is known and verified, respecting the modes of 

15 



16 CAUSE AND EFFECT 

such movements. The contradiction implies eternal 
confusion and disorder; an eternality of incoherency, 
a medley of disharmonies. Unthinkable! The term 
chance — eliminative of cause and effect — is conveni- 
ently applied where observations concerning the 
phenomena of Nature are either much circum- 
scribed, or defective. There can be no effect in 
the absence of an adequate preceding cause. Whatever 
prodigality, wastefulness, or apparent disorder, may be 
attributed to Nature's operations, Nature is ever precise 
and orderly in its movements from cause to effect. 
Whatever appears chaotic is nevertheless due to the 
definite movements of matter. Organic life depends 
not upon chance, but upon definite physical conditions 
favorable to living organisms. These conditions rep- 
resent a chain of successive causes and effects. The 
destruction of organic life likewise depends upon physi- 
cal conditions, but different from those pertaining to liv- 
ing organisms. Cause and effect relate to all conditions 
of matter, inorganic and organic. When the particles of 
several elementary forms of matter unite they causa- 
tively effectuate a form of matter different from either 
of the elementary units entering into a chemical com- 
bination. The vibratory movements of the cellular 
units (in complex interdependent relationship) of brain 
matter causatively effectuate the various functionings 
of brain matter. 

Cause and effect are the phenomenal expressions of 
the moving matter of the universe — of suns and plan- 
ets, satellites; of the moving matter of every plant and 
animal; of the moving matter of every human brain. 






EVOLUTION 

Evolution denotes successive change from simple 
to complex; from complex to simple. 

It is a very far cry from nebulous matter in spiral 
movement to a solar system. Many millions of years 
in the reckoning! 

Again, it is a very far cry from a molten planet 
to a planet fitted for matter in its movements to evolve 
the very lowest forms of organic life. Many more 
millions of years in the reckoning ! 

And, again, it is a very far cry from the origin of 
the simplest form of earthly organic life to Nature's 
partially finished product — Man! 

In estimating the vast period of time intervening 
between the origin of the simplest organisms and the 
advent (by gradual evolution) of the man-animal, the 
figures of geologists vary from 50,000,000 to 100,000,- 
000 years. 

Time, in its amplitude, is always with Nature. 

Evolution (change) is the order of the universe. 
Evolution is co-eternal with matter. Evolution is Na- 
ture's method of marshalling primary units and vari- 
ously combining them into all forms of inorganic and 
organic matter. 

Again, let it be repeated, evolution is co-eternal 
with matter. 

Particles of matter, with their mutual attractions, 

17 



18 EVOLUTION 

change — must change — their relative positions in time 
and space. That is primary evolution. 

Inorganic elements combine and by their vibratory 
activities cause interactions — interactions effectualizing 
more and more complex combinations of matter. 
That's evolution — evolution more and more complex. 

The same elements unite their potentialties in an 
environment suited for such union and form protoplasm 
— the very basis of all organic life. That is evolution 
still more complex in changes wrought. 

Since evolution means change, both simplicity and 
complexity are necessary sequences. By progressive 
evolution (synthetic or constructive) Nature proceeds 
from the simple to the complex. Retrogressive evolu- 
tion (analytical or destructive) is Nature's mode of 
resolving complexity into simplicity. 

How marvelously and profoundly impressive, the 
evolution of simple cells, nucleated cells, and multicell- 
ular oragnisms of great complexity of structure — all 
from primary protoplasmic units ! 

The basic facts of evolution have passed the point 
of disputation on the part of all unbiased investigators 
of natural processes. As time goes on further inves- 
tigations respecting the complexities and intricacies of 
such processes will undoubtedly reveal to mankind 
even more of the marvelous than has ever yet been 
dreamed of. When mortals, in large numbers, cease 
to hug delusions resting upon human assumptions, re- 
lating to supernaturalism, more attention will be de- 
voted to the book of Nature, with a corresponding 
advance in scientific investigation and rational enlight- 
enment. Whatever the assumptions of mere credulity, 
and notwithstanding all the self-importance the man- 
animal may associate with his ego, there is not a scin- 
tilla of evidence in existence in support of the postulate 
that man will, in all the millions of years of earth life 



EVOLUTION 19 

to come, get beyond, or escape subjection to natural 
processes; beyond the reach of natural causes and 
effects — beyond the earth ! The ultimate particles now 
complexly collocated in his anatomical structure will 
doubtlessly be bounding about in space billions of years 
hence and necessitously participate in the evolution of 
a solar system, a planet, or a satellite, or again parti- 
cipate, as primary units, in the evolution of complex 
organizations of matter; but man of the present earth 
is altogether and absolutely of the earth, earthly; and, 
verily, how very transitory, how relatively insignificant 
is man! 

With much accuracy of thought and clearness of 
expression, Dr Henry Smith Williams in his "History 
of Science" observes : "Every scientist with a wide 
grasp of facts, who can think clearly and without pre- 
judice over the field of what is known as cosmic evolu- 
tion, must be driven to believe that the alleged wide 
gap between vital and non-vital matter, is largely a pig- 
ment of prejudiced human understanding. In the 
broader view there seem to be no gaps in the scheme of 
cosmic evolution — no break in the incessant reciprocity 
of atomic actions, whether these atoms be floating as 
a fire-mist out in one part of space, or aggregated into 
the brain of man in the other part." 

Present diverging views respecting vital and non- 
vital matter will in the course of years no longer exist 
even in the minds of laymen in the realm of scientific 
contemplation. No influence can stay the onward 
march of accumulating facts and truths revealed 
by the processes of Nature and the multifari- 
ous phenomena resulting therefrom, except a relapse 
to human barbarism through the instrumentalities of 
ignorance and credulity utilized by designing men — 
a possibility now, happily, more remote than in former 
times. The momentum of verified knowledge inreases 



20 EVOLUTION 

in proportion to its scope and efficiency of dissemina- 
tion. Anathemas, hurled against evolution from those 
who have very scant or no information respecting the 
subject that disturbs their equanimity, or which seem- 
ingly threatens to interpose danger to the fixedness 
of their worldly interests, are becoming less in number 
because the varied influences of mere traditional super- 
stitions and myths are gradually withering in the light 
of human knowledge and reason. 




THE UNIVERSE 

Beyond the confines of our solar system are vast 
depths of space inhabited by unnumbered suns, plan- 
ets, satellites, and by nebulous matter. Copernicus, 
Galileo, and Kepler established the limitations of the 
solar system, and later astronomers (foremost among 
them the noted Herschel) with their great telescopic 
reflectors, discovered that the far distant stars — re- 
garded as "points of light" by the ancients— are suns, 
each and every one of all the millions, and many of 
them larger than the sun of our relatively small system. 
And, they are moving suns. Not fixed in space as was 
for a long time believed. They are whirling in gigantic 
orbits about some common centre. Our sun is far from 
that centre. The central luminous mass of our solar 
system is a star, circling with its rotational attendants, 
and no different from a myriad of other stars, though 
not even as large as some. Beyond the few thousand 
stars visible to the naked eye the astronomers see 
series after series of more distant suns "marshalled in 
galaxies of millions." At last a point beyond is reach- 
ed where the galaxies no longer increase, and yet the 
limits of astronomical vision have not been attained. 
Within limitational boundaries beyond our solar sys- 
tem trained astronomers, with their powerful reflec- 
tors, outline the universe and "prove that it has the 
shape of an irregular globe, oblately flattened to almost 
disklike proportions and divided at an edge, a bifur- 

21 



22 THE UNIVERSE 

cation that is revealed even to the naked eye in the 
Milky Way." 

This universe, as Herschel conceived it, is a vast gal- 
axy of suns, held to a common centre, poised in space. 
But, the great telescopes do not pause. Far out beyond 
this universe are revealed other universes, each com- 
posed, as astronomers think, of myriads of suns, each 
clustered like our galaxy into "islands of matter in an 
infinite ocean of space." So far distant from our uni- 
verse are these universes that their light reaches 
us only as a dim, nebulous glow, mostly invisible to 
the naked eye. When Herschel began his studies about 
a hundred of these nebulae were known. Before the 
close of the eighteenth century he had discovered about 
two thousand more of them, and many of these had 
been resolved by his largest telescopes into clusters 
of stars. He believed that the farthest of these nebulae 
that he could see was at least three hundred thousand 
times as distant from the earth as the nearest fixed 
star, yet the nearest fixed star — recent astronomical 
studies prove — is so remote that light, traveling one 
hundred and eighty thousand miles a second, requires 
three and one-half years to reach the vision of the 
inhabitants of our planet. 

These astounding and awe-inspiring findings of 
Herschel, and later masters of astronomy, at once force- 
fully suggest the insignificance and impotency of the 
childish assumptions of credulous and egoistic mortals 
who predicate anthropomorphic (human-like) super- 
vision of "celestial mechanics." 

"Doubtless, the most interesting things revealed 
by the modern observations of the stars," says Dr. 
Henry Smith Williams, "relate to the movements of 
those supposedly 'fixed' bodies. The seeming fixity 
of the stars is merely due to their distance. In point 
of fact they are flying through space, singly, in pairs, 



THE UNIVERSE 23 

in groups, clusters, and in swarms, or in vast streams 
of incomprehensive magnitude. Some of them 
move at a rate of more than 150 miles per sec- 
ond; and the average speed of the very large number 
hitherto tested, according to Prof. W. W. Campbell of 
Lick Observatory, is 20.2 miles per second. One par- 
ticular star, the sun, with his attendant planets, moves 
through space at the rate of about twelve and one- 
half miles per second, making therefore in point of 
speed, as in the matter of size, a rather poor showing; 
yet after all shifting our position in space about 367,- 
000,000 miles each year." 

In contemplating the far reaches of our universe 
and of the still vaster spacial depths of the universes 
beyond, and the existence of innumerable suns and 
planets, the conclusion is irresistable that our little 
earth is not the only planet in infinite space upon which 
flourishes organic life. Doubtless, planets of numer- 
ous solar systems in the boundlessness of space are 
inhabited by vegetable and animal organisms resem- 
bling those of the earth during past and present geo- 
logical ages. In all probability, wherever physical con- 
ditions are favorable organic life is developed. It is 
the opinion of astronomers that Mars, one of the 
members of our solar system and 10,000,000 miles dis- 
tant from the earth, now sustains vegetable and 
animal life. The planets Jupiter and Saturn, other and 
more distant neighbors of the earth, are passing 
through stages of planet life similar to those which 
our earth passed through before it became fitted for 
organic life, and there is reason therefore to believe 
that hundreds of millions of years hence varied forms 
of animal life will flourish on those planets provided, 
meanwhile, the heat radiated from the sun is not 
largely diminished. 



THE SOLAR SYSTEM 



" Out of darkness into darkness again such are the bourns 
of cosmic action." — Loweu,. 

Many, many millions of years ago the matter now 
comprising- the masses or bodies of the solar system 
with the sun as its centre, around which the earth and 
other planets move in their respective orbits, existed 
in a nebulous, homogeneous form — as cosmical "fire- 
mist," the vibrating particles of which, in more or less 
condensed groups and aggregations, contributed to the 
spiral or vortex movements of such groups and masses. 
This nebulous matter in its radius far exceeded the 
present confines of the solar system. 

THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS OF LAPLACE 

The nebular hypothesis of the great French as- 
tronomer Laplace, of the eighteenth century, postulates 
that a widely diffused mass of cosmic matter, which 
now constitutes the solar system, aggregated about a 
common centre of attraction and formed a superheated 
gaseous globe, revolving upon its axis. As the vapor- 
ous mass contracted through loss of heat its revolu- 
tions became more rapid and from time to time 
"through balance of forces at its periphery," rings of its 
substance were whirled off and left revolving there, 
subsequently to become condensed into planets, and in 
their turn whirl off minor rings that became moons. 
The central part of the original mass remains as the 

24 



THE SOLAR SYSTEM 25 

still contracting and rotating sun. The subsequent 
and relative positions of rings whirled off from the 
original mass were determined by the continued mutual 
attractions of all the rapidly rotating bodies of the sys- 
tem in their orbital movements about the sun. 

THE PLANETESIMAL HYPOTHESIS 

A later theory as to the origin of the solar system, 
known as the planetesimal hypothesis, came into ex- 
istence through the astronomical observations of Pro- 
fessor Keeler, formerly director of the Lick Observa- 
tory, during the last two years (1898-1900) of his life; 
and, further developed by Professor T. C. Chamberlain 
of the University of Chicago and his younger colleague 
Professor T. R. Moulton. This new theory assumes 
that the typical spiral nebula is in fact the parent 
structure of a solar system; that our solar system was 
once a spiral nebula differing only in size from one of 
the hundreds of thousands of such bodies that inhabit 
the universe. In reviewing the planetesimal hypothesis 
Dr. Williams, in his "History of Science," observes: 

"A spiral nebula is a system of worlds in the mak- 
ing. The central nucleus is the future sun. Various 
of the spots that lie along the arms of the spiral are the 
nuclei of future planets. Professor Chamberlain calls 
nuclei of all sizes 'planetesimals' because they are sup- 
posed to be revolving in independent orbits like minia- 
ture planets. It is obvious at a glance that the larger 
nuclei — bigger fragments of world stuff — make up the 
structure of the spiral arms. It should be explained 
that matter is not streaming along these arms as might 
be supposed, but that the entire structure is revolving 
as if it were a solid body. The larger nuclei, however, 
necessarily exert a gravitational influence over the 
smaller planetesimals in their neighborhood; hence an 
incessant shower of smaller particles will fall against 



26 THE SOLAR SYSTEM 

each larger nucleus and this augments its size and its 
gravitational power. As time goes on, each of these 
growing nuclei will (through gravitation) suck in the 
matter from the space about it, as a vacuum cleaner 
sucks in dust, until each larger body will be revolving 
in a clear space. Thus the myriads of planetesimals 
will have been aggregated into a smaller number of 
planets; and the spiral nebulae will have been developed 
into a planetary system. The original central nucleus 
of the nebulae having drawn to itself the cloud of minor 
planetesimals in its neighborhood, becomes a central 
sun. According to this theory, then, our earth in com- 
mon with its sister planets, was never a gaseous ring, 
nor yet a liquid globe, but was built up about a more or 
less solid nucleus by a perpetual meteoric bombard- 
ment. Larger planets of our system may have gather- 
ed matter so rapidly, thanks to their greater gravita- 
tional power, as to superheat their substances to the 
stage of liquidity or gaseousness. Such is still the con- 
dition of Jupiter and Saturn, and probably also of 
Uranus and Neptune. But our earth and the other 
smaller planets were probably from the beginning solid 
in structure, though doubtless developing a higher 
inner temperature, through impact and compression. 
Their growth would be decreasingly rapid as the out- 
lying planetesimal matter within their sphere was more 
nearly exhausted. But their growth continues, in a 
minor degree, even now; for it is well known that the 
earth sweeps up something like a hundred million 
meteors each day — these meteors being, supposedly, 
belated fragments of the original spiral nebulae. Oc- 
casionally a larger fragment of world-stuff in the form 
of a giant meteorite falls into our atmosphere, and finds 
at last a resting place on earth." 

The two theories, thus outlined, as to the origin of 
the solar system, though divergent in character, never- 



THE SOLAR SYSTEM 27 

theless give absolute support to the conclusion, enter- 
tained by all modern astronomers, that the matter con- 
stituting our present solar system once existed as dif- 
fused nebulous, or attenuated, matter. 

It is in place to make brief reference to the Ptole- 
maic and Copernican theories respecting the move- 
ments of the sun and planets of the solar system. 

It was the Ptolemaic theory that the earth is the 
established centre of the solar system about which 
the stars and planets revolve every twenty-four hours, 
the sphericity of the earth being admitted. 

The Copernican theory, now universally accepted, 
is that the sun is the centre of the solar system, that 
the planets including the earth, of course, revolve 
about it in describing their orbits in space during rela- 
tively fixed periods of time. The planets known at 
the time when the Copernican theory was promul- 
gated were Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. 

The following, excerpted from the writings of Dr. 
Lowell, the famous astronomer, well illustrates the 
opposition of ultra conservative thinking to scientific 
progress: "The Ptolemaic system of the universe 
was once taught side by side with the Copernican 
at Harvard and Yale. We are impressed not so 
much by the age of the universities, as with the 
youth of modern astronomy, and with the extra- 
ordinary vitality of old ideas. That the Ptolemaic sys- 
tem was antiquated at the start, the older Greeks hav- 
ing had juster conceptions, does not lessen our wonder 
at its tenacity. But the fact helps us to understand 
why so much fossil error holds its ground in many 
astronomical text-books to-day. That stale intellectual 
bread is deemed better for the digestion of the young 
is one reason why it often seems to them so dry." 

Probably as much can safely be remarked of 
numerous text books — other than astronomical — at 
present in use. 



THE EARTH 

The earth came into existence as a part of the 
solar system — as a minor part of the work of Nature. 
It was not catapulted into existence by supernatural de- 
cree or fiat. In this twentieth century, with enlighten- 
ing advantages accruing from accumulations of dem- 
onstrable and organized knowledge derived from many 
fields of scientific research and analysis, persistence in 
clinging to ancient myths and traditions, respecting 
the origin of the earth and all animal life, clearly indi- 
cates the tenacity of human credulity, and the insist- 
ence of influential factors contributing to the propa- 
gation of the childish fables that abide amid the ac- 
cumulated mass of many centuries. The outstanding 
credulities of earlier mankind that continue to widely 
serve as barriers to the permanent progress of the hu- 
man race, evidence the fact that some of the agencies 
(assumptively and with dogged determination) pro- 
claimed to be most civilizing and uplifting are without 
foundation in fact and therefore, in effect, deceptive, 

misleading, unreliable, and in large part retrogressive. 
* * * * 

In treating of the earth only a few brief geological 
notations will be presented, and these for the purpose 
of encouraging the reader to acquire an abundance of 
detailed and illuminating knowledge to be found in 
any standard work on geology, and thereby derive a 
fund of inspiring information from a very interesting 
and thought-stimulating branch of science. 

28 



THE EARTH 29 

The geology of science, which relates to the past 
and present structure of the earth, requires the largest 
possible conceptions of time. Though such concep- 
tions are more or less vague they afford the mind a 
wide outlook upon the processes of Nature and the 
resulting phenomena, thus affording a reasonably fair 
understanding and appreciation of the vast and varied 
transformations due to the simple and complex move- 
ments of matter in infinite space and time. 
* * * * 

It is in accord with geology and astronomy to en- 
tertain the conclusion that our day has been increased 
in length since the earlier geological periods of the 
earth. Then its revolutions upon its axis were very 
much more rapid, each revolution requiring only 6^4 
hours. Since that far-off time the rapidity of the 
earth's axial movements has been slowly decreasing 
and, if the now existing harmony of relations between 
the members of the solar system is maintained, there 
will come a time when instead of a single revolution 
of the earth being made in twenty-four hours, a month 
will be required for each revolution. It is probable 
that so inconceivably rapid was the velocity of the 
movement of the earth, when it first became relatively 
fixed in position as part of the solar system, that a rev- 
olution was made in the brief space of an hour. After 
the outer crust became solidified the friction of the 
molten matter within decreased from time to time the 
speed of our planet's revolution about its centre or 
axis. The retardations caused by internal friction from 
within preceded, of course, the vast volume of water 
that subsequently covered the greater part of the 
earth's surface, and which previously existed as super- 
heated vapor containing, principally, the elements of 
hydrogen and oxygen, and carbon dioxide. The fric- 
tion of ocean tides now constitutes the retardant 



30 THE EARTH 

brake in the diminishment of the speed of the earth's 
revolutions. The water, now covering about three- 
fourths of the surface of our planet, is being gradually 
absorbed by the earth. Vast quantities of it are 
coursing down through apertures and crevices, finding 
lodgment in porous rock formations. Ultimately the 
earth will become a barren, lifeless planet (somewhat 
like the moon is now) awaiting collision with other 
masses and reduction to nebulous matter — in readiness 
to participate in the formation of a new solar system 
somewhere in the boundless depths of space. 

The enormous period of time that elapsed from 
the earliest existence of the earth (then in a state of 
high temperature) to the beginning of its rock forma- 
tions, is perhaps beyond computation, based upon con- 
clusive evidence. From the time of the solidity of the 
earth's surface until it approximated exterior condi- 
tions fitted for the evolution of the lowest forms of 
vegetable and animal life, the elapsing period accord- 
ing to Geikie, a noted author of standard text-books 
on geology, was from 100 to 400 million years — 100 
million years representing the minimum and 400 mil- 
lion years the maximum depositions. There is rea- 
son to assume that the rate of deposition, alluded to 
by Geikie, depended upon the increasing or decreasing 
volcanic eruptions caused by the interior heat of the 
earth and the action of water and air upon the rocks 
already in formation. As previously noted, during the 
earlier life of the earth, the volume of water (formerly 
existing as heated vapor) upon its surface was much 
greater than it is now. The increasing rapid conden- 
sation of the dense vapor caused frequent and torren- 
tial precipitations of water and, doubtless, the down- 
pours of rain were more numerous and of greater vol- 
ume than during any subsequent period of the earth's 
history. For a long time the surface of the earth did 



THE EARTH 31 

not receive any radiant light and heat from the sun, 
because of the density of the atmosphere which sur- 
rounded it. 

The present thickness of the crust of the earth 
is now estimated at 100 miles. The enveloping gaseous 
atmosphere is reckoned to extend into space about 
500 miles from the surface of the earth, becoming more 
and more attenuated as the distance from the crust 
of the earth increases. 

The earth has undergone many great changes in 
surface contour during its geological periods. Enor- 
mous upheavals and subsidences were caused by the 
pressure of superheated steam following the contact 
of water with the heated inner crust of the earth. 
These volcanic upheavals and consequent areas of sub- 
sidence during the earlier geological periods became 
less in power and scope as the crust of the earth 
thickened. The earthquake shocks in the equatorial 
belt of the earth are at present examples of what was 
happening on a potentially stupendous scale in former 
periods of the earth's existence as revealed by evidences 
of its topography during remote geological ages. 

The present surface contour of the earth, with its 
towering mountains, and its hills and valleys covered 
with varying depths of soil, is due to upheavals and 
subsidences of the earth's crust, ajnd the action of 
water, ice, atmosphere, and heat. The soil, upon which 
all vegetable and animal life depend for continued ex- 
istence is the accumulation of disintegrated or decom- 
posed rock, such decomposition having been caused by 
the action of water, ice, and the sun-heated atmos- 
phere. These agencies have been, and continue to be, 
potent factors in effectively changing the topography 
of the earth. Water wears away rocks. The con- 
stant dropping of water upon a rock formation will 
gradually cause a depression in its surface. The deep 



32 THE EARTH 

channel cut through solid rock below the falls of Niag- 
ara is one of the multifarious illustrations of the power 
or friction of running water during a long period of 
time. The agencies noted are gradually lowering che 
heights of mountains and hills and filling up the valleys 
or depressions of the face of the earth, except where 
water at its lowest level and in rapid movement is 
wearing away the rock with which it comes in con- 
tact. The mountains and hills of the present will be 
some feet less in height from surrounding levels a 
thousand years from now, with a corresponding in- 
crease in soil depositions in the valleys and lowlands. 
Ultimately, these agencies at work during millions of 
years to come must reduce our planet to a spheroid 
of approximate uniformity of surface. The oldest rock 
formations are the most deeply imbedded in the crust 
of the earth, and relics of former geologic sea floors 
reveal traces of land surfaces. Fossiliferous remains 
of plants and animals have been found in depositions 
in rock formations at great depths from present sur- 
faces. Among the records of the rocks lie the lava 
and ashes of volcanoes long extinct. 

The earlier geological records of the earth show 
that plant and animal organisms were very differ- 
ent from the types existing in later geological form- 
ations. 

The structural formations of the earth's crust as 
geologically designated are divided into a number of 
periods or ages, and subdivided into stages to more 
fully present in detail the successive additions and 
changes wrought during the long ages of the past. 
The oldest rock formations are those of the Archseo- 
zoic and Laurentian ages, as indicated by granitoid 
rocks. The next age is the Palaeozoic, the age of in- 
vertebrates, age of fishes and of amphibians, covering 
the age of coal formations. The Palaeozoic is followed 



THE EARTH 33 

by the Mesozoic age divided into the Triassic, Jurassic, 
and Cretaceous periods. The Palaeozoic was the age 
of reptiles. The next ascendant stages are the Tertiary 
and Quaternary, divided into the Eocene, Oligocene, 
Miocene, Pliocene, and Glacial periods. The earliest 
evidences of organic life have been found in the Laur- 
entian age. This evidence includes the existence of 
bacteria depositing iron, lime, sulphur, etc. ; algae and 
molds depositing lime and carbon; single-celled plants 
depositing siliceous ooze; protozoa (single-celled ani- 
mals) depositing lime and silica; and many-celled ani- 
mals. In succeeding ages next in order are evidence 
of invertebrate and vertebrate animal life, with man 
at the apex during the Pliocene period of the Tertiary 
age, and the Glacial period of the Quaternary (pres- 
ent) geological age. 

The gradual development and transformation of 
myriads of organic forms, beginning with single-celled 
organisms in the Laurentian age required many mill- 
ions of years. 

The enormous lapses of time since the earth, as a 
member of the solar system, began to become fitted 
for the beginning of vegetable organisms, and the 
enormous periods that have since elapsed, indicate how 
very old the earth must be and, yet, it can hardly be 
reckoned as having passed middle-life. Its old and de- 
clining age will come, just as old age follows the child- 
hood and adult stages of human animals. The rapidity 
of the revolutions of the earth is decreasing, largely 
on account of tidal friction. However slowly and im- 
perceptibly, the earth is slowing up. This means that 
a time will come when one revolution will require a 
month instead of twenty-four hours; when day and 
night will alternate once a month from one part of 
our planet to the other — when the water now on the 
surface will have become absorbed by the earth. Mean- 



34 THE EARTH 

while mankind will mark the highest stages of devel- 
opment attainable under attending physical conditions. 
There will come a time when the last man will perish, 
forevermore! Excepting only a possible catastrophe 
— collision with some other mass — animal life will 
probably continue to exist on the earth for millions of 
years to come. Ample time for ushering in more of 
heaven and less of hell! Every succeeding generation 
contributes its share of weal and woe. It is the task 
of the human race to determine, without the help of 
the hypothetical gods of supernaturalism, what shall be 
the highest possible achievements of mankind! 




LIFE 

What is life ? This question has seriously engaged 
enquiring minds as far back in the centuries of the 
past as knowledge of the historic period extends. 

Life, in its simplest and most comprehensive de- 
finition, is motion. No motion, no life! The universe 
is alive! 

In an organic sense, the end of the life of an organ- 
ism does not mean a cessation of the movements of 
the elementary units of matter that composed the or- 
ganic structure when living. Organic structures are 
temporary. Only ultimate units of matter are eternal. 

When the units of elemental matter unite chemi- 
cally and dynamically and form protoplasm — the basis 
of all vegetable and animal life — their movements are 
no longer altogether simple, but are more involved and 
complex; the elemental character of each unit has not 
been changed, but the movements of each are com- 
plexly related to all the movements of the units com- 
posing the protoplasmic mass. This is obviously so 
because, upon the disintegration of the mass the ele- 
mental units become released and, as inorganic units, 
are free to enter into other combinations. Protoplasm 
reveals the genesis of organic life. Wherefore the dif- 
ference between the elements combined in protoplasm 
and the simple movements of the elements? Different 
because of the complexity of the combination and move- 

35 



36 LIFE 

ments of the elements, as distinguished from the simple 
movements of the atoms and molecules constituting 
elementary substances. Since the movement, yea, the 
life, of an atom of hydrogen, with or without one or 
more electrons attached, must be quite simple, and, 
since the synthesis and analysis of mechanico-chemical 
action in evolving organic tissue and structure involve 
the unit of hydrogen in complex combination with 
other units, the interjection of an extraneous "vital" 
principle would appear entirely gratuitous, or super- 
fluous. Where is there room for, or evidence of, any- 
thing but the multiplication of simple movements, the 
increasing or decreasing complexity of atomic-mole- 
cular structure, and differing phenomena of matter in 
motion, resulting in various conditions or states of 
matter, including organic life? The chief contention in 
support of the "vitalistic" theory of life is: "No life 
except from preceding life." This position may be 
accepted, provided "preceding life" is extended to "pre- 
ceding" movements of inorganic matter. The "vital 
force" manifested by organic structures is very real as 
the power, the expression, the evidence of simple and 
involved movements in complex organic combinations 
of protoplasm — the mechanico-chemical genesis of life. 
Natural phenomena are recognized through the 
sensory organs of human and other animal anatomies, 
and the recognition of such phenomena forms the 
only basis for attaining dependable knowledge. 
Any theory respecting the phenomena of life not 
associated with such knowledge is obviously devoid 
of a rational foundation. Reasoning from a mechanico- 
chemical basis, no more mystery attaches to the phe- 
nomenon of life than to the phenomenon of light, the 
phenomenon of heat, and so forth. The movements 
of a living animal as a whole, or the movements of all 
the interrelated parts of the animal however low or 



LIFE 37 

high in complexity of organic structure, constitute the 
totality of the life of the animal, at any given instant 
of its existence. When these movements cease the 
life phenomenon evidenced by the animal ceases. 
What then as to the life no longer manifested? In the 
anatomy of the living animal the processes synthetical 
(constructive) and analytical (destructive) are en- 
gaged. The processes in part involve the essential ap- 
propriation of oxygen and the adequate elimination of 
carbon dioxide. The life of the animal ends when the 
destructive process within its anatomy predominates 
and the life that was manifested, when the constructive 
process was more potent than the destructive, ceases. 
It is the burden of those who maintain that life 
is a "vitalistic" something, which exists independent 
of organized matter, to at least attempt to indicate at 
what point in the line of development (from the ori- 
gin of protoplasm to the organic structure of man) 
the "vitalistic" entity becomes a part of the human 
organism. 

Since the phenomenon of organic life begins with 
protoplasm, and since the most complex multicellular 
organisms are composed of protoplasmic units differ- 
entiated in the complexity of organic structures, all 
verified knowledge, thus far attainable, unqualifiedly 
supports the affirmation that the phenomenon of life 
revealed by all animals (man included) is a temporary 
manifestation of complex combinations and movements 
of matter, and that this manifestation begins and ends 
amid the everlasting processes of Nature. 




EVOLUTION AND MAN 

Man, in complexity of anatomical structure and 
adaptation to environment, represents the crowning 
work of Nature on our planet. How the human species 
and all other forms of animal life, in their multifarious- 
ness, came into existence was for many centuries a 
very perplexing question to investigators of natural 
processes and phenomena. Theological solutions of 
the profound problem became popular centuries ago, 
and they remain so now, even in the most civilized 
quarters of the earth. But, the impetus given by the 
publications of Charles Darwin, and subsequently by 
other naturalists of much genius, during the latter half 
of the nineteenth century, furnished direct and power- 
fully effective support to the theory of evolution, which 
had been more or less vaguely entertained and espoused 
by previous investigators during preceding centuries. 
The first quarter of the twentieth century finds the 
men of science everywhere (and all others who have 
possessed themselves of sufficient knowledge to form 
enlightened opinions respecting the subject) a unit in 
supporting the conclusion, of transcendant import, that 
all existing forms of organic life, whatsoever, 
typify the effects of successive changes in struc- 
ture and function through long periods of time — 
from primordial beginnings in earlier geological epochs. 
All these multifarious changes, however involved 

38 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 39 

in complexity, are signified by the term evolution. 
The more able and progressive exponents of 
supernatural agencies are disposed to accept the 
validity of evolution (because their intelligence will 
not permit them to do otherwise) but they are unable 
to divest their minds of a designing creator existing 
apart from the processes of Nature. It does not seem 
to appear to them that in assuming the existence of a 
creator extraneous to Nature they invite the assump- 
tion of pre-existing creators. Since all that is known 
of natural processes unmistakably indicates that all 
creative efficiency inheres in Nature, assumptions re- 
specting extraneous agencies may be attractive, but 
they are none the less to be regarded as gratuitous and 
superfluous. Happily, these progressive metaphysi- 
cians are at least partly on the side of those who discern 
the vital importance of rational knowledge as an es- 
sential factor in advancing helpful* human enlighten- 
ment. But this observation is intended only to apply to 
those makers of theological dicta who are not striving 
to keep their believing followers in ignorance of the 
facts of evolution and of the true logic of such facts. 
It often happens that half-way adherents of an estab- 
lished truth in Nature are among the worst enemies 
of truth. Some of the "orthodox" theologians may, 
perhaps do, in a general way, secretly entertain an at- 
titude favorable to evolution, without permitting the 
subject to inharmoniously affect their theological ten- 
ets. It is to be noted to their credit that they do not 
hypocritically discuss and openly denounce what they 
themselves partly believe. They are trying to be as 
consistent as they can be, under the stress of environ- 
mental and other influences — and that is to their credit 
also. While these considerations are in a measure en- 
couraging, it is reasonably certain that a majority 
of pulpiteers refuse to accept the evidences of evolution, 



40 EVOLUTION AND MAN 

and among the majority, here and there, are those 
who now and then insist upon making public exhibi- 
tions of their crass ignorance and intellectual stupidity 
by condemning evolution as being without foundation 
in fact, especially as it concerns man. These are the 
bigoted ultra-conservatives in the realm of theological 
mysteries, and they are entitled to charitable reflec- 
tions in the same sense as are the general frailties and 
shortcomings of ignorance and credulity. The great 
masses of humanity doubtlessly are, as yet, either 
totally or in large part uninformed (through no fault 
of theirs) regarding" evolution. They are not so in- 
formed because of the deficiency, or the inefficiency, of 
their educational training. It is obviously absurd to 
expect any member of the human species to know that 
which cannot be known to that member, because of lim- 
itations precluding accessible sources of information. 
While, in a general sense, the destructiveness and 
banefulness of ignorance are to be deplored, or even 
condemned, the ignorance of the individual units of 
society, respecting questions of very great importance 
as affecting the welfare of humanity, is entirely an- 
other matter. To condemn those who are doing about 
the best they can do, and thinking about as much as 
they are able to think, amid the conditions under 
which they have lived and are living, is manifestly 
unjust. 

A few of the very numerous and well established 
facts of evolution, pertaining particularly to man, will 
now be presented: 

The principal inorganic elements constituting the 
human anatomy are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitro- 
gen, phosphorous, sulphur, iron, chlorine, and silicon. 
All these and all other elemental forms of matter, in 
chemical and dynamical combinations of great com- 
plexity, found in the multicellular structure of man, 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 41 

are very common earthly matter or substance. The 
gradual development of the human organism with its 
millions of cells, relatively fixed in type and pro- 
pagating its species, required a very long period of time. 
The successively propagated generations of all the vari- 
ous species of animals involve relatively brief periods 
for each generation. 

The genesis and organic development of the indi- 
vidual member of the human species, are linked with the 
genesis and development of the species as a whole. It 
has been biologically determined that man of the pres- 
ent in the embryonic stage of his development and 
growth exhibits the progressively complex changes and 
modifications, relating to form and function, which have 
characterized the development and life history of the 
species. In other words, and more briefly, the em- 
bryonic development of the individual is an epitome 
of the evolutionary development of the species, be- 
ginning with single cells of protoplasmic structure. 
These primary cells also formed the life beginnings 
of all forms of organisms that later came to be grouped 
in the various so-called species or groups of animal 
existence — the development of the varying species hav- 
ing been effectualized by the multifarious differences 
and differentiations in the multicellular organic struc- 
tures. The evolution of single cells from simple pro- 
toplasm marked the beginning of vegetable and ani- 
mal organisms — attracting and subsisting upon proto- 
plasm and inorganic substances. It has been found 
impossible to distinguish any difference between some 
of the most primary vegetable and animal organisms. 

Many, many millions of years intervened between 
the existence of primary protozoons (single cell organ- 
isms of the Laurentian geological age) and the advent 
of man, but the organisms in lines antecedent to the 
genesis of the human organism, with all its present 



42 EVOLUTION AND MAN 

complexity, hark back to a remote period of geologic 
time. While the successive evolutionary advances were 
in course the lower organic types became relatively 
stable for a time, but then advanced again and again, 
thus involving more and more complexity of structure 
and becoming invested with the potentialities of he- 
redity. These potentialities in the evolution of the 
various species brought about the transmission of char- 
acteristics of form and function common to each species 
during the different stages of development. The in- 
fluences of heredity, while becoming more or less con- 
stant in character were nevertheless, during long 
periods modified or changed, in part at least. The 
potencies of heredity were, and continue to be, the 
chief contributing causes in determining and maintain- 
ing the relatively fixed types of the different species of 
vegetable and animal organisms. However, these 
types were and are yet constantly affected by influ- 
ences which cause modifications and changes in the 
distinguishing characteristics of organic forms. 
Heredity, through the transmission of influences re- 
sulting in more or less permanence of the types or 
species, from generation to generation, solved many 
of the former mysteries associated with the higher and 
more complex evolution of organic life. Environment 
(influences from without) and heredity (influences 
from within) shaped the structure and individual char- 
acter and functions of all the more complex organisms. 
Without the hereditary transmission of certain de- 
termining potentialities, beginning with organisms rel- 
atively simple in structure, and the transmission of 
such potentialities to all the progressively complex or- 
ganisms, organic life as evolved and now witnessed 
on our planet would have been impossible. Instan- 
taneous creations are not a part of Nature's processes. 
The development of organic life, over wide areas 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 43 

of the earth's surface was manifestly not continuous; 
breaks in life lines were inevitable on account of 
vast upheavals and subsidences resulting in exten- 
sive transformations in rock structures and caus- 
ing death to myriads of living organisms. Many 
organisms were either shifted from one quarter to an- 
other, or destroyed during two great glacial periods 
— the probable causes of which cannot be referred to 
here. These periods, intervening between the tertiary 
and quaternary ages embrace at least 100,000 years. 
The changes that took place in living organisms dur- 
ing this time included those affecting man — who had 
then already advanced to about his present stage of 
physical development. 

The human species belongs to the mammalia (all 
animals that nourish their young with milk) and it 
has been shown that the mammalia originated from a 
single ancestral form which lived in the Triassic geo- 
logical period, though having ascended from still lower 
forms — amphibia and reptilia. The outstanding and 
very significant fact is that the anthropogeny and an- 
atomy of science afford ample evidence to show that 
the primates — of the Triassic period — lemurs, monkeys, 
anthropoid apes, and man— descended from one com- 
mon stem. Moreover, the existing differences in struc- 
ture between man and ape are not so marked as to 
afford, by any means, sufficient grounds for man to re- 
pudiate relationship to a previously existing animal 
very similar to the higher apes. 

The successive stages of development of the hu- 
man embryo reveal the most astonishing and suggestive 
findings of the biology of science. These findings 
reinforce the facts derived from paleontology, which 
firmly establish the evidence of the evolution of man 
from very remote ancestral types. Biology shows the 
essential similarity of the original egg cells of man 



44 EVOLUTION AND MAN 

and other animals. When the sperm of the male at- 
taches to, or unites with, the germ or ovum of the 
female (both sperm and germ being invested with he- 
reditary and other potential tendencies) the embryonic 
life of the individual human embryo begins, receiving in 
course of development the food sustenance required 
in its growth from the blood of the female parent. At 
certain stages of development the human embryo can- 
not be distinguished from the embryos, at given pe- 
riods, of a number of animals much lower in the scale 
of organic existence than man. If geology and pal- 
eontology even failed in part (which they do not) to 
prove the evolution of the human species from very 
primary organisms, biology would more than make up 
the deficiency in evidence. 

The evolution of language from primitive sounds 
was doubtless contemporaneous with the develop- 
ment of brain functions, and the divergent character 
of language thus acquired was due to the more or less 
widely (geographically) separated segregations or 
tribal groupings of the human species. There are now 
speechless tribes which exhibit a language faculty only 
in embryo and not much raised above that of lower 
animals. The speechlessness of more primitive man, 
in the early childhood of the race, may well be com- 
pared to the inability of human babes to speak the 
language of their parents. The infants are without 
words, and the sounds they utter give promise of a 
later development of speech. As in embryo, so at later 
stages of its existence, the developing child epitomizes 
the stages of the evolutionary processes involved in 
the development of the race. This applies, of course, 
to language as well as to the gradual increase and en- 
largement of the convolutions (foldings of cellular mat- 
ter) of the brain. The lower the stage in the scale of 
animal descent the smaller the number of brain convo- 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 45 

lutions. The lower orders of mammalia show but 
slight traces of such development. Bees and ants, 
though relatively small in form, exhibit a higher 
degree of organization, and their brains present con- 
volutions much out of proportion to their anatomies 
as a whole. This accounts for the remarkable instinct, 
or primary intelligence, so frequently manifested by 
the industrious makers of honey and by the equally 
active, though destructive, ants. The differences in 
convolutions of brain matter noted among the lower 
animals apply to individual human brains. These dif- 
ferences become very marked in comparing the in- 
tellectual weaklings of the race with those of strong 
intellectual equipment. Differences in degree, not in 
kind, are written large amid the manifestations of the 
weakness and the strength of mankind, and very for- 
cibly illustrate the effects of purely evolutionary pro- 
cesses which involve, as they do, great variations in 
individuals of the same species; variations caused, 
most potently, by the influences of heredity and en- 
vironment. 

* * * * 

The evolution of man involved his struggle for ex- 
istence against influences destructive in character, 
within and without his anatomy. It is a hard fact that 
all animal life is the resultant of opposing influences 
due to the constructive and destructive activities of or- 
ganic matter. Hence a constant struggle. No struggle, 
no organic life; no evolutionary development. There- 
fore, struggle is the natural, necessitous penalty of hu- 
man existence. The "survival of the fittest" amid the 
struggle clearly implies that the organisms best fitted 
to withstand destructive influences, and progressively 
develop, survived, while other organisms not so fitted 
perished prior to the completion of full development, 
or, before reaching the limits of longevity common to 



46 EVOLUTION AND MAN 

members of the species. The struggle for existence 
among civilized mankind very frequently eventuates in 
the loss to humanity of individuals (early in life or in 
middle age) of intellectual and moral qualities and at- 
tainments, because of physical weaknesses and the in- 
ability to resist unfavorable hereditary potencies, or the 
ravages of disease, while vast numbers of those morally 
and intellectually unfitted to figure on the constructive 
side of human existence, are physically so vigorous as 
to resist the influences which destroy life. It is quite 
obvious, therefore, that the operations of Nature, pro- 
ceeding from cause to effect, are totally devoid of any 
concern respecting the fitness or the unfitness of mem- 
bers of any species of animals, as from human view- 
points they may appear to be. 

* * * * 

The man-animal at any given time during the short 
span of individual life represents the resultants of the 
activities of anatomical structure, plus the influences of 
environment. He is no more nor less than the sum- 
total of all the determining factors involved in his ex- 
istence as a sojourner on the face of the earth, of 
which he is in totality the evolutionary product. What- 
ever of pride or vain conjecture he may associate with 
himself, every image of his brain, every phantasma- 
gorical vision he may nurture in his conscious mo- 
ments, every fact and assumption he may cherish with 
a sense of superiority and self-satisfaction, are but the 
transitory expressions of efficient and purely physical 
causations which arise within his anatomical structure 
and which are involved in his evolutionary existence. 
Neither mere assertion, nor assumption, can establish 
the facts of evolution, because the evidences in support 
thereof exist independently of human ipsi dixits. The 
great task is to discern the facts. Truths are dis- 
covered and stated by man. They are neither God- 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 47 

made, nor man-made. Whatever of eternal truth ex- 
ists is established by facts derived from pre-existing 
evidence. It is quite natural for those who are not 
informed with respect to the evolutionary development 
of man from primitive organisms to be shocked when 
told that the animal species to which they are bound 
hard and fast, is remotely related to lizards, or a type 
similar to lizards, and that among their ancestors of 
a far-off geological age were reptiles and fishes. Never- 
theless, biological, if not paleontological, findings 
support the statement. Those who have been trained 
to believe that man was ushered full-fledged, fully- 
developed, into mundane existence by the fiat of a 
man-made God, are easily disconcerted when their 
sense of vanity is disturbed. Once the facts of evolu- 
tion become plain to men their strong inclination will 
be to accept such facts, and no longer experience feel- 
ings of repugnance in contemplating ancestral rela- 
tionship to lemurs, monkeys, or gorillas. Rather will 
they regard with philosophic complacency the similar- 
ity of their ancestors to simian types, and see that ex- 
isting evidence shows that even monkeys could not 
be guilty of the fiendish crimes committed by men in 
the first quarter of the twentieth century. The culti- 
vated greed and ambition of modern man, united with 
the influences of crass credulity have caused a portion 
of the human race to largely increase, rather than de- 
crease, the sum-total of heartless wickedness. Many 
of the resulting, misery-breeding crimes, including the 
monstrous crimes of war, of the present and previous 
centuries, lower the human species in any com- 
parison which can be made with any other species of 
animals in existence. Therefore, it illy becomes vain- 
glorious man, to disdainfully disregard his distant 
ancestors. 

The wide dissemination and efficient inculcation 



48 EVOLUTION AND MAN 

of the facts of evolution will enable man to draw many- 
lines of similarity existing between his anatomy and 
the anatomies of other animals. They will encourage 
him to significantly note the fact that more difference 
in structure and capacity now exists between the most 
highly developed and the lowest developed man than 
between the latter and the highest developed anthro- 
poid ape. Furthermore, this important fact will in- 
cline man — disposed to boast of his exalted state of 
civilization — to anticipate that future centuries will 
find men surprised and shocked as they read in his- 
torical records of man's cruel, heartless, and demon- 
iacal inhumanity to man in the twentieth century — 
when all manner of assumptions, credulities, and 
supernatural religions flourished galore; when schools, 
colleges, universities, and other educational instrumen- 
talities were numerously in evidence. What a mix- 
ture of boasted civilization and of something worse 
than barbarism (all in the twentieth century) will be 
presented to the inhabitants of the earth a thousand, 
or five thousand, years from now! The obligation 
clearly rests upon mankind of the present to insist 
upon the accumulation of more and more information 
as to man's true place in Nature, to know more and 
more of his evolutionary genesis and development, 
and more and more how to best apply knowledge thus 
derived for the efficient enlightenment, intellectually 
and morally, and the permanent betterment of the 
present and succeeding generations of mankind. 

In conclusion, some reference to the question 
"How old is man?" is in place: The question involves 
much that is not known. If it could be determined 
about when man-animals first began to roam about on 
the earth on two legs instead of four, and to use clubs 
and stones in their struggle for existence — thus 
gaining advantages of much importance to them — it 



EVOLUTION AND MAN 49 

might then be roughly stated that a million years have 
elapsed since the man-animal became a pronounced 
type of the genus homo species. Men of science, were 
they disposed to adopt positive procedures in establish- 
ing exact periods when evolutionary processes reach- 
ed certain definite points in organic development, 
much like the proceedings of the early church fathers 
when they conjecturally fixed upon the year and hour 
of the allegorical creation from nothing of man and all 
living things, could easily, albeit imaginatively, answer 
the question. According to Prof. O. E. Marsh, a 
famous American paleontologist, it is not an exagger- 
ation to estimate that 250,000 years ago the man-ani- 
mal was fully developed physically in most essential 
particulars, and that he then possessed all the brain 
functions of man of the present age. Obviously, some 
of the functions of his brain were not developed to 
the same extent as those of the most highly devel- 
oped members of the human race of the twentieth cen- 
tury. The same author's opinion was that, according 
to Professor Whitney's famous discoveries in the 
American pliocene period of human remains and 
utensils fashioned by human hands, the tertiary man 
must have existed prior to the time stated. The an- 
tiquity of the Piltdown man of Sussex, England, is 
established at from 100,000 to 300,000 years. The re- 
stored skull by J. H. McGregor, as well illustrated in 
Osborne's "Men of the Old Stone Age," exhibits an 
ape-like structure of the jaws, and also an expression 
of considerable intelligence in the face. The Pithe- 
canthropus erectus, the ape-man of Java, is conserva- 
tively estimated to have thrived 500,000 years ago. 
Osborne says "it is not improbable that the pre-hu- 
man races of this geological age used more than one 
natural weapon of wood and stone." The great anti- 
quity of man, in erect posture, is beyond disputation. 



50 EVOLUTION AND MAN 

His advancement through the acquirement and utili- 
zation of various weapons and contrivances to assist 
him in self-protection and in obtaining subsistence be- 
came more rapid in the course of time and resulted 
during many subsequent centuries in finally establish- 
ing him at the very apex of all organic life. Civil- 
ization of the present century is yet afar off from 
possible heights of development, intellectually and 
morally, respecting the human race as a whole. Just 
how much evolutionary progress will be made ere dis- 
integrating and retrogressive processes will intervene 
raises a question in the absence of available informa- 
tion upon which to base an answer. It is certain, how- 
ever, progressive evolutionary (altogether natural) 
processes, as they pertain to planetary conditions fav- 
orable to the development of organic life, are by no 
means wholly indicative of permanence or perpetuity. 
It is probable that civilization, like ocean tides, will 
continue to rise and fall; that advances and higher 
achievements will be succeeded by recessions from 
relatively high standards, due to internal weaknesses 
of the social fabric. The principles involved both 
in constructive and destructive processes through- 
out the universe invariably apply to all forms of civil- 
ization, whatsoever. These principles have applied, in 
all particulars, to the evolution of man from simple 
protoplasm; they will continue to apply to all the or- 
ganic activities of the human race, individually and 
collectively, until the very last representative of the. 
species genus homo perishes from the earth. The evo- 
lution of man is only a part of the life-history of our 
planet. The earth, having had a beginning, will reach 
its end. Somewhere between the beginning and the 
end mankind transiently figures as one of the evolu- 
tionary products of the earth. Ultimately, the life of 
our race will be "as a tale that is told." 



MATTER AND MIND 



From matter we rise to mind by means of brain matter. 
— H. TUTTI.E. 

The highest and most complex portion of the hu- 
man anatomy is the brain, composed of myriads of 
cells of rapidly vibrating nerve matter, variously group- 
ed and convoluted, and capable of discharging a num- 
ber of different functions. The varying differences 
in character of the cell-groups are determined by differ- 
entiations in cellular structure and movement, each 
group being adapted to a particular brain function. 
The correlations sustained between the intimately as- 
sociated portions of the brain are mutually in- 
fluential. The brain is directly and indirectly united, 
vitally and efficiently, with the whole nerve structure 
of the human anatomy. The various co-ordinating 
relations existing between the brain and all the nerves 
of the body are defined in modern text-books relat- 
ing to the anatomy, physiology, and the physical psy- 
chology of science. 

The general term mind as here employed is in- 
tended to include awareness, consciousness, cognition, 
and all the higher manifestations of cerebral activity. 
Every phase whatsoever of mind is the expression or 
phenomenal accompaniment of a state of brain mat- 
ter. These states vary in their expressions in propor- 

51 



52 MATTER AND MIND 

tion to the differences in character and activity of the 
cells involved in mind phenomena. In the absence of 
states of brain matter there has never yet been pro- 
duced a particle of evidence of mind in any of its 
phases. In the absence of consciousness, which im- 
plies the wakeful and sustained activity of the brain 
as a whole, the man-animal is quite unconscious 
of his own existence and oblivious to all existences 
about him. Consciousness is renewed only when cer- 
tain activities of the brain are re-established. There- 
fore, consciousness can be plainly viewed in no other 
way than as a temporary phenomenon of the activity 
of brain matter. All the divisional portions of the brain 
involved in its various functions must represent definite 
activities in sustaining the various states which ex- 
hibit the different phases of mind. A part of the brain 
functions vision, or seeing, by reason of impulses from 
without being impressed upon the nerves of the eyes. 
Destroy the nerves of the eyes and vision forever 
ceases where it had previously existed. When impulses 
from without are prevented from reaching that part 
of the brain which functions hearing, deafness results. 
Consider that portion of the brain which functions rea- 
soning, the most complex work of the gray matter con- 
tained within the cranium. Serious disturbance or 
modification of the normal activities of brain matter in 
that section or compartment leads to a serious inter- 
ference with, or to the elimination of the process of 
reasoning. All the strength and all the weakness as- 
sociated with all the activities and functions of the 
brain are constantly determined by the varying condi- 
tions or states of brain matter, whatever the contrib- 
uting factors related to those conditions may be. The 
different parts of the brain being mutually interde- 
pendent, as previously stated, the normal or abnormal 
activities of any part exert favorable or unfavorable in- 



MATTER AND MIND 53 

fluences upon every other part. The very complex, 
physico-chemical, and mechanistic character of the 
structure of the brain as a whole, or of its parts, pre- 
sents marvelously precise and delicate adjustments, so 
that untoward influences, arising from within or with- 
out, the anatomy, impressed upon the gray matter, mod- 
ify and vitiate the character of the work it is normally 
qualified to do. Every nerve impulse or sensation 
arising in any part of the anatomy, however indirectly 
it may be conducted thereto, becomes involved in the 
activities of the brain. 

While there is no evidence whatsoever of the phe- 
nomenal existence of what is termed mind, separate 
and apart from the activities of brain matter, it by no 
means follows that man has anything compared to a 
complete monopoly of mind. Whatever of great im- 
portance is attached to the highest product of Nature 
on our planet, man has much in common — anatomi- 
cally, physiologically and even psychologically — with 
all other species of animals and the higher insectivora. 
It can hardly be successfully disputed that bees and 
ants, in proportion to their volume of brain matter, as 
compared with the vastly greater volume in the dome 
of the human anatomy, are equally as clever, intui- 
tively, and as intelligent, in a sense, as man. Their 
adaptation of means to precise ends, within the scope of 
their ability, and the mathematical accuracy of some 
of their work cannot be excelled by man. All of the 
higher animals next to man also give evidence of dis- 
criminative brain work. Many of them reason, at 
least in a primitive sense, and rather effectively, too. 
The master's dog learns to know, by experience, by 
putting this and that together, the different moods of 
his master — the differences between intonations ex- 
pressive of kindness, and sounds expressive of harsh- 
ness, and so forth. What is true of dogs is likewise 



54 MATTER AND MIND 

true of horses, and the more the activities of animals 
lower than man are closely observed and considered, 
the more evidence is discerned respecting the work 
of their brains. The most primitive brains of men, 
as represented by some of the lower types of mankind 
do not possess, as a whole, as much intelligence as 
the higher types among other species of animals. 

Those who may insist upon the existence of mind 
as a something, or as an entity, separate and apart 
from brain and nerve matter, place upon themselves 
the burden of showing, first, the whereabouts of the 
mind of man when he is in profound slumber; sec- 
ond, why the assumed entity is so lavishly bestowed 
upon some individuals and so parsimoniously allotted 
to others; and third, what becomes of the mind of a 
man, or of the mind of any other animal, when both 
man and animal cease to exist. Practically, the same 
burden rests upon those who postulate the existence 
of "ideas" extraneous to the physical phenomena of 
brain matter, or those who go so far with their ideal- 
izations as to feel encouraged to regard ideas as being 
the only real existences. In so far as verified knowl- 
edge of brain activities, and their resulting phenomena, 
extends at present, there can be found no valid argu- 
ment in opposition to the conclusion that all phases 
of mind (hallucinations and delusions included) reveal 
definite states of brain matter, and that in the absence 
of the activity of brain matter there is no evidence 
either of the existence, or of the manifestation of mind. 




NATURAL MORALITY 

Fundamentally and broadly considered, Nature is 
unmoral — neither moral nor immoral ; neither good nor 
evil; neither kind nor cruel; neither merciful nor un- 
merciful; neither just nor unjust; yet precise in all its 
processes. 

Electrical discharges from cloudland descend and 
destroy life. Electricity takes no account of its deadly 
work. Those who happen to get in line with the direc- 
tion of its movements must suffer the consequences, 
fatal or otherwise, and without escape or redress. Cy- 
clones destroy lives and property. The gyrating matter 
forming cyclones has no feeling or pity for those who 
suffer or die on account of its rapid movements. Earth- 
quakes demolish human habitations and cause the 
death of thousands of mortals. Earthquakes have no 
murderous intent, no compassion, or pity. The ele- 
ments all about us unsparingingly contribute to both 
the existence and the destruction of humanity; but the 
elements are totally unconcerned as to whether human- 
ity exists or ceases to exist. Light and heat — as light 
and heat derived from the sun — are devoid of any con- 
sciousness respecting the continuity or cessation of 
human life. Disease fatally affects mankind without 
feeling or regard for the sufferings and woes in con- 
sequence thereof — regardless of the goodness or wick- 
edness, the worth or worthlessness, of its victims; and, 
regardless of all prayers and petitions. Large num- 

55 



56 NATURAL MORALITY 

bers of the noblest and best of our race, in the prime 
of life, are from time to time smitten to death by dis- 
ease, or by man's cruel "inhumanity to man," while 
great hordes of criminals, derelicts, and worthless para- 
sites, continue to exist as dangers to and burdens upon 
society. Disease exhibits the relentless operation of 
cause and effect. The prevention of fatalities from dis- 
ease, and from the death-dealing influences of man- 
kind, through human, and only human instrumental- 
ities, is altogether another matter — as will be indicated 
hereinafter. 

Since Nature in its universal primary processes is 
neither moral nor immoral, whence come morality and 
immorality? 

The constructive and destructive processes, per- 
taining to the formation and disintegration of masses 
and combinations of matter throughout the universe, 
likewise pertain to the evolution, birth, existence, and 
dissolution of animal organisms, and to all their life 
activities. The same processes comprehend in their en- 
tirety the influences of human conduct including those 
designated, relatively, as good and evil. 

The multifarious movements of matter involved in 
the transitions from inorganic to the most complex 
organic structures conform to numerous lines of dif- 
ferentiating activities — (chemico-mechanical in char- 
acter) ; all the succeeding conditions or states of mat- 
ter in all lines differing one from another. Thus, Na- 
ture has created through evolutionary processes the 
highly organized brain of the highest type of the hu- 
man species of animals. This brain reveals the phe- 
nomenon of mind. The elemental units of which the 
cellular or brain mass is composed, exhibit no mind 
phenomena, because they are not chemically and me- 
chanically combined and organized, as is the brain. It 
therefore appears that, operating from the simple to 



NATURAL MORALITY 57 

the complex in matter-movements Nature in part be- 
came humanized in man! — in an organism capable of 
limitationally interpreting the processes of its creator! 
Nature has sufficiently developed man and other ani- 
mals to enable them to interpret in part various phe- 
nomena of Nature, and to be measurably and advan- 
tageously influenced by such interpretations! 

Reverting to the transitions from inorganic matter 
to the most complex organisms, as noted in the pre- 
ceding paragraph, a few supplementary considerations 
are submitted as antecedent to the further discussion of 
the subject of this essay: 

A given mass of inorganic matter common to the 
earth, and of the earth, earthly, contains all the chem- 
ically elemental units found in the human anatomy. 
These units as combined in the formation of proto- 
plasm — the basis of all organic life — are as a whole 
no longer characterized, in their changed relationships, 
as inorganic matter. Their inorganic character, in- 
dividually, remains the same, but the character of the 
combination they have effected is altogether different. 
Protoplasm — mobile, gelatinous — exhibits no resem- 
blance in appearance or character to the mass of in- 
organic matter from which it was evolved. The next 
gradation above protoplasm is a simple cell; next, a 
nucleated cell of protoplasmic matter. Then follow, in 
orderly sequence, from simple to complex, the multi- 
plication of nucleated and differentiated cells which 
enter into the somewhat higher forms of organic life, 
manifesting sensation, and so forth. Primary sensa- 
tions precede the final evolution of the nerve and brain 
structure of the human anatomy. There must have 
arisen in the brain, in course of its development, various 
functional characteristics revealing varying states of 
brain matter. In this way man became naturally hu- 
manized and endowed with cognition, memory, and the 



58 NATURAL MORALITY 

ability to discern differences between two or more ob- 
jects about him. His primary sensations were thus 
augmented by more complex and effectualizing con- 
ditions or states of nerve and brain matter. Evidently, 
the origin of self-consciousness was accompanied by 
the advent of awareness, cognition, memory, and var- 
ious other states of functionalized brain matter. Prim- 
itive man, affected by sundry external influences, as 
well as by influences within his anatomy, learned to 
draw lines of difference and distinction (in cause and 
effect) associated with such influences — especially 
with influences from without. In a perfectly natural 
way early man discerned the effect of his acts upon 
others of his species about him; acts primitively moral 
and immoral, loving, hateful, and otherwise. His 
moral acts exerted a goodly influence upon his asso- 
ciates and himself. His immoral or harmful acts result- 
ing inimically to others, similar acts toward him from 
others followed. The mutual interdependence always 
existing between individuals of the human species ne- 
cessitated moral conduct, however circumscribed, on 
the part of all. Sympathetic and mutually helpful ac- 
tions on the part of individuals form the very basis, the 
only basis of enduring human society; beginning with 
the family unit. No doubt the moral tone of primi- 
tive man was crude and devoid of much acuteness. 
[About as much can be observed of the moral tone of 
millions of mankind in the twentieth century, since 
some of the elements of our complex modern civiliza- 
tion tend toward all manner of moral delinquencies]. 
However, in the course of evolutionary progress, dur- 
ing long periods of time, mankind, in considerable part, 
reached higher and still higher stages of development 
until the highest and most efficiently trained man-ani- 
mals now represent the loftiest standards of morality 
thus far attainable. To what extent morality has been 



NATURAL MORALITY 59 

increased, during its evolutionary stages, by the ele- 
ment of fear, will always remain a mooted question. 
But, true it is, that neither fear, nor any form of wor- 
ship rooted in fear, is a dependable and permanent cri- 
terion of the natural moral status of individuals. Mere 
emotional goodness usually lasts until the temporary 
emotional influences abate. Moreover, various forms 
of immorality are frequently associated with emotional 
activities — however important the part performed by 
the emotions when directed by the sense of right and 
by reason. Elevated moral standards are invariably 
determined by the influences of heredity and by the in- 
tellectual and moral training incident to environ- 
mental influences. Morality, theoretical and practical, 
is a purely natural, evolutionary development, involv- 
ing many, many thousands of years of experience de- 
rived from human associations and necessities. The 
moral concepts of primitive man must have been vague 
and crude, but crude as they were, they served needful 
and essential purposes relating to his existence and 
progress. The perniciously false and childish dogma 
(foisted upon humanity in the early part of the Chris- 
tian era) of man's original, inborn, total sinfulness by 
nature, has ever since inflicted harmful effects upon 
humanity. Its baneful influence will exist until it is 
forced into the shades of oblivion, along with a number 
of other conjectural aberrations that continue to weak- 
en and curse mankind. There is amid the myriads of 
organisms on earth none more pure and guileness in 
its very innocence than a newly born babe. Its heredi- 
tary potentialities, for which it is absolutely irrespon- 
sible, involve potencies for both good and evil, but the 
character that will stamp its adult life will meanwhile 
depend upon its environment; upon its intellectual 
and moral training. A child well born is easily 
perverted in an atmosphere of ignorance and im- 



60 NATURAL MORALITY 

morality. A child not so well born is likely to de- 
velop into a useful member of society if trained amid 
moral influences and directed by discriminating intelli- 
gence. Whatever of sinfulness there be in the human 
race, such sinfulness bears no relationship to the dog- 
mas of hallucination. Moreover, it is a momentous and 
very significant consideration that some so-called civ- 
ilizing agencies are in their last analysis more produc- 
tive of immorality than of morality. Instead of 
"original sin" having been inflicted upon the race, man 
has developed many forms of immorality, of which his 
more or less remote ancestors could not have been 
guilty. Some of the moral derelictions and delinquen- 
cies of present-day civilization have been cumulative. 
They are the effects of causal conditions that have 
come to inhere in the social fabric through influences 
arising concomitantly with the character of our civili- 
zation, from time to time, however much boasting may 
be done with respect to its standards. Notwithstanding 
these discouraging considerations, the moral (construc- 
tive) influences of humanity, as a whole, are more po- 
tential than the immoral (destructive) potencies of 
mankind. Under certain conditions men are naturally 
moral; under certain other conditions men are natur- 
ally immoral. Constructive and destructive influences 
are always and everywhere struggling for supremacy 
in human acts and affairs. So far as human behavior 
is concerned civilized society will continue to exist so 
long as moral influences are more determinative than 
immoral influences, and no longer. Our civilization 
as yet is not as far removed from barabrism as human 
vanity supposes. 

Whatever the false claims and pretenses of super- 
natural ecclesiasticism, natural morality and rational 
knowledge have been and always will be the bulwark 
of any form of civilization worthy of the name and 



NATURAL MORALITY 61 

entitled to the admiration and respect of sane men. 
Natural morality has been evolved in the struggle for 
existence in a world of natural conditions and is the 
natural product born of the needs and necessities of the 
human race in course of development through ages of 
the past. Enlightened natural morality is the ultimate 
and crucial test of the real value of all religions. There 
is no scientific fact at variance with the existence of 
natural morality and immorality. Natural morality is 
humanly constructive. Natural immorality is humanly 
destructive. All Nature is natural. It is the essen- 
tially needful task of mankind to discern the natural 
influences which relatively and vitally affect the human 
race, as being good and helpful; to discern the natural 
influences which harmfully and destructively affect the 
race, and to acquire enough wisdom and strength to 
maintain the supremacy of naturally and humanly con- 
structive influences. Failure to do so will mean the 
destruction of human society. 

The obligations arising from the natural relations 
existing between man and man necessarily establish 
man's moral responsibility to man. This responsibility 
begins and ends with man, and imposes very serious 
duties upon mankind, individually and collectively. 
Failure to recognize and discharge such "duties must 
inevitably lead to consequences of a destructive and 
disastrous character. Man is the only savior of man- 
kind, morally and in all other respects. 




REASON AND MORALS 

Evidently the functions of memory, reason, and 
natural morality, were contemporaneous in origin in 
the brain of the man-animal. These functions are 
closely related, each obviously dependent upon the 
other. The weakness or strength of one affects the 
other and modifies the causal effects of each. Merely 
the awareness or cognition of a moral cause or effect 
without the constructive interposition of memory and 
reason — respecting relations and conclusions — would 
be only awareness or cognition. Moral conceptions 
unsupported by moral acts are divested of their goodly 
influences. 

Reason and morality are the safeguards of indi- 
viduals and of society, and the more enlightened they 
become the more will humanly helpful influences and 
abiding progress be manifested by mankind. 

A moral impulse, unguided by reason, may in its 
effects prove both immoral and unjust. Very conscien- 
tious persons have been known to encourage immoral- 
ity by exercising unreason and injustice. Since knowl- 
edge, of whatsoever kind, to be accurately regarded as 
true, must stand the test of evidential analysis at the 
bar of reason, it must follow that if moral and immoral 
actions in their effects are to be correctly classified 
reason, guided by facts, must perform the task. 

Reason deals with relations existing between two 
or more objects or things. These relations are dis- 

62 



REASON AND MORALS 63 

cerned, as clearly as may be, by observation and ex- 
perience. This discernment, when supplemented by 
careful reasoning, becomes dependable. Man sees, ob- 
serves, feels; these sensations result in experience, 
memory. Reason analyzes effects and establishes 
conclusions by comparison as to various activities of 
the human organism, including those which have to 
do with conduct or behavior — moral and immoral; 
relatively good and relatively bad, or evil. A child 
sees and hears, but its sensations are in a state of in- 
coherency. By and by discernment and discrimination 
enable it to distinguish in a primitive and inexpressible 
way, one sensation from another, even though it must 
scorch its little fingers a number of times while making 
progress. The child develops and learns to know a 
few things. If environment is favorable and the 
natural mental capacity of the little one is up to the 
average the process of observing and knowing is ac- 
celerated. The intellectual status of the adult is de- 
termined by the activities, the opportunities, and the 
training received during childhood and youth. This 
status can only be expressed in terms relating to 
knowledge; and upon knowledge is based the moral 
status of the individual, plus or minus the potencies of 
heredity. The knowledge of a man or woman may be 
quite limited, and yet it may find expression in moral 
rather than in immoral action. On the other hand 
knowledge may be rather profuse and find expression 
in immoral rather than in moral action. It depends 
upon the kind of knowledge; a little of the right kind 
often contributes much toward making better men 
and women. Moreover, all actions prompted by such 
knowledge as can be demonstrated by observation, ex- 
perience, and reason, to be relatively true and right- 
ful, constitute the bed-rock foundation upon which is 
reared the complex social structure broadly termed so- 



64 REASON AND MORALS 

ciety. Knowledge, attested by reasoning from cause 
to effect, is at the very basis of all that is permanent 
and enduring in laws and government, at the basis of 
all justice — provided, of course, such knowledge har- 
monizes, in its application, with the highest standards 
of moral conduct. To distinguish between rightful and 
wrongful action the individual must first understand 
more or less clearly the difference in the results 
flowing from both kinds of action, as they affect 
the individual and others within range of the in- 
fluence of these results. This understanding is 
shaped, made coherent, and directed by reason. In- 
dividuals are prone merely to assume that certain lines 
of action are morally right and just and then essay 
to enforce their assumptions without halting to put 
their notions to the test of reason. No matter how 
"conscientious" they may feel themselves to be, if their 
feelings are based upon false premises, upon error, the 
final effects of their feelings put into action will be 
baneful. It is not what men believe to be right or what 
they believe to be true that establishes either right or 
truth, for in the absence of applied reason by which to 
demonstrate in the light of known facts the correctness 
of their beliefs they are just as likely to be in the path 
of error as in the path of truth — as to that which is 
effectually right or wrong, just or unjust. Every act 
of morality or immorality is inherently moral or im- 
moral, right or wrong — no matter by whom committed. 
Right is everywhere and always on the constructive 
side of human affairs. Wrong is always and every- 
where an element of destruction. Moral and other 
truths, established by reasoning upon verified knowl- 
edge, illumine the recesses of error and finally es- 
tablish unerring finger-boards pointing toward the 
avenues of right and justice — toward the domain where 
right, not might — and mere popular acclaim — stands 



REASON AND MORALS 65 

for the simple and unostentatious rihtfulness of doing 
right. In this domain all men are free to unite 
their efforts in helping to make this world a really bet- 
ter world, without wearing cloaks of hypocrisy, without 
compromising truth by espousing error, without bend- 
ing a knee to creeds, or being moved by mere emotion. 




MATERIALISM 

The term materialism is variously defined. It has 
a wealth of meaning, in a general sense, because it 
relates to matter, the movements of which give rise to 
all the phenomena of Nature. The influence of popu- 
lar vagaries greatly encourages the use of the term to 
express supercillious derision for materialists — those 
who do not recognize the existence of so-called spirit 
as an entity, or as anything separate and apart from 
the temporary manifestations or phenomena of brain 
matter. Those who use the term most freely, in a de- 
rogatory manner, do not pause to attempt to define it, 
specifically or otherwise, since specific definitions are 
likely to interrupt the flow of conjectural verbosity 
and disturb the equanimity of egotism. A number of 
current definitions will not be included in this discus- 
sion, which is intended to relate principally to those 
who deride materialism because of their conceptions, 
however vague, of "spirit." Therefore, the term will 
be used to express non-agreement with what it as- 
serted of spirit. The latter term is variously defined by 
the exponents of supernaturalism as "the breath of 
life," a "life-principle," "soul," a "disembodied soul" — 
soul and spirit being usually employed synonomously. 
These definitions enmesh us in a network of ambigu- 
ous phrases. If the "spirit" is the "breath of life," 
and the "breath of life" is the "soul" or "life principle" 
of man, then spirit, breath, soul, and life principle, ob- 

66 



MATERIALISM 67 

viously cease their manifestations at the close of the 
life-existence of man, individually or collectively — 
terminate with the cessation of the breathing process. 
The breathing of all animal organisms is purely a 
physico-mechanical operation; when breathing ceases 
the animal dies. However, theologically conjectured 
and defined, a "disembodied soul" implies the con- 
tinued existence of soul apart from bodily (physical) 
contact, as something apart from something, without 
being something. Here is where the doctors of di- 
vinity and others rest their claim with a degree of 
positiveness that repels all argumentation. Neverthe- 
less, the burden of proof rests upon the claimants. 
Pending the presentation of proof, materialists are not 
required to interpose either affirmation or denial. Their 
chief concern is associated with the evidence of facts. 
It is their obligation to go as far as evidence will per- 
mit them to go, and not mistake a pure assumption for 
verified information. However, they rightly abstain 
from positive denial; they would rather await proof of 
the existence of a "disembodied soul/' and humbly ask 
to be excused from accepting a mere postulate. 

A portion of humanity has been instructed, theo- 
logically, to exalt "spirit" and degrade matter as being 
far beneath "spiritual things." In analyzing this pop- 
ular attitude of mind several contributing factors are 
discerned, which include the influence of mere conjec- 
ture and a lamentable disregard for what is known of 
Natural processes. The extent to which this dis- 
regard is associated with paucity of reliable informa- 
tion would be difficult to estimate. 

If a beautiful and delicately perfumed flower were 
possessed of mind and speech and would pass under 
the tutelage of "inspirationists and "spiritists," it might 
easily be prompted to exclaim: "Tell me not that my 
perfection of form, my beauty, and the fragrance of 



68 MATERIALISM 

» 

my exhalations comes from you! — vile matter! I know 
better because I feel it cannot be so!" Notwithstand- 
ing the flower's appreciation of its own beauty, and 
the scorn it might express for matter, the fact would 
still exist that the difference — in totality — in form ex- 
isting between the "vile matter" and the flower would 
be a difference only of atomic and molecular structure. 
No "vile matter" no beautiful flower! 

Vain man inclines to attach great importance to 
himself, amid the existences of Nature about him — 
delegates to himself much authority in reaching con- 
clusions, regardless of evidence; and, to expect others 
to implicitly accept such conclusions. In many in- 
stances nonacceptance invites ridicule and scorn, all 
of which, needless to say, is not argument from evi- 
dential premises. In their flings of disparagement 
superficial thinkers reveal a disposition to virtually 
repudiate the very source of their existence. There is 
not an atom in their anatomies that is not material 
and earthly. Without the oxygen of the atmosphere 
the activities of their organisms could not be sustained 
an instant; without water and various forms of food 
composed of moving elemental units identical to those 
in motion throughout the universe, they would soon 
cease to exist. And yet they decry materialism and 
materialists! All their thoughts, noble and ignoble, 
all their ideals, however lofty; all their aspirations and 
inspirations simply reveal varying temporary states of 
brain matter. Moreover they are respectfully advised 
that they are not within sight of a monopoly of lofty 
ideals and humanitarian impulses, nor of a monopoly 
of appreciation of all that is good, beautiful, and re- 
fined, as revealed by the processes of Nature; that the 
rational materialists of science (not the irrational vo- 
taries of pseudo-science and false philosophies) observe 
the necessity for constructive human action; observe 



MATERIALISM 69 

the constant conflict of constructive and destructive 
influences arising from the processes of Nature, and 
draw lines of discrimination and endeavor to profit 
thereby. They love that which is sublime and 
beautiful in Nature; they revere reason, justice, 
virtue and all forms of human goodness, because all 
these are arrayed on the constructive side of human 
existence; they recognize man's responsibility to man 
for all the influences, good and evil, exerted by man- 
kind. They have no use for the term "divine" in any 
other sense than that denoted by the noblest and most 
inspiring sentiments and acts, as phenomenally ex- 
pressed by highly organized brain matter; because in 
the absence of such brain matter — evolved during a 
long period of time — there could be manifested no 
noble, inspiring, and altruistic sentiments. If lofty 
human thoughts be "divine," they are naturally so; 
they are not known to be imported from extraneous 
sources. 

Those who choose to repudiate the very material 
source of their existence and derisively regard mater- 
ialism and materialists do so, either because of what 
has been conjectural, unfounded in fact, and superficial 
in their educational training, or of a desire to cater to 
popular fallacies. However, it would be uncharitable 
to condemn them. The more reasonable procedure 
would be to petition them kindly to tarry, now and 
then, with the data of materialism as revealed by 
science, and not endeavor to repudiate the source of 
their existence. 






REFLECTIONS UPON HUMAN EXISTENCE 

How few the years that measure the lives and ac- 
tivities of the generations of mankind, as they come and 
depart, in comparison with the ages that have elapsed 
since that far-off time when earthly conditions made 
possible the evolution of primary organisms from in- 
organic elements! How few those of the individual 
compared with the years to come ere man shall reach 
his highest possible development amid earthly condi- 
tions, assuming always the evolutionary progress of the 
race will continue! Many thousands of years must 
pass before the rational and moral development of the 
race as a whole will reach its highest mark under fav- 
orable influences. 

Humanity of the present is the heir of all the ages 
of organic life that have gone before. Humanity, in- 
dividually and collectively — at any given period — re- 
veals the exact effects of antecedent causes. The 
stupendous mechanism of the universe, of which the 
earth is but one of the countless minor parts, involves 
no elements of chance. Humanity came not by chance, 
nor by supernatural fiat, but in accord with the orderly 
and necessary operations of that something which 
moves and occupies space. Humanity is a part, how- 
ever small, of that something — matter, substance, or 
whatever it may be termed. 

The passing moments are present and divide the 
past from the future. The joys and sorrows of the 

70 



REFLECTIONS UPON HUMAN EXISTENCE 71 

present are the outcome of the past; so with the total- 
ity of the good and ill that humanity exemplifies at the 
passing of every instant. 

The paramount consideration of every human life 
should be to recognize the duties of life and diligently 
strive to perform them. All duties or obliga- 
tions arise from the natural relations existing between 
all the individuals of society. Upon the discharge of 
these obligations the welfare of humanity must ever 
depend. The state of society at any given period of 
time represents the potency of the collective influences 
of all its units in so far as they relate to the various 
conditions of society, as a whole. Those who live and 
move about on the face of the earth are to a very con- 
siderable degree enjoying the fruitage of the love, 
labor, and sacrifices and struggles after higher and 
better things, of those who have lived their lives and 
passed away. Obviously, therefore, the generation now 
on the stage of existence is under serious obligations 
to generations yet unborn that must perforce perform 
their parts in the drama of life. The discharge of these 
obligations must begin with the ever-present. The 
past is gone forever; only the future remains. Every 
obligation or duty rightly performed is one step in 
the right direction, one influence that assists the indi- 
vidual and other individuals, directly or indirectly, to 
help make this a better world to live in now and a 
better world for those who will take our places when 
our journeyings and our labors are ended. Lives de- 
voted to usefulness, to the discharge of the simple yet 
manifold duties and obligations imposed upon each 
and all, are the lives that perpetuate the most helpful, 
the happiest and best influences arising from earthly 
conditions, affecting mankind. 

Real success in life depends upon the amount of 
rational satisfaction and happiness derived from the 



72 REFLECTIONS UPON HUMAN EXISTENCE 

various and rightful activities common to mankind. 
The seeds of satisfaction and happiness that contribute 
to success do not germinate amid influences which, in 
their effect upon humanity, are baneful, demoralizing, 
destructive. Happiness is elusive. Those who expect 
to find it in idleness, dissipation, mere frivolities, or 
in immoral acts will realize disappointment, unhappi- 
ness and remorse. Success, in a higher sense, cannot 
be estimated from the standpoint of wealth, since sat- 
isfaction, happiness, and contentment of mind are not 
purchasable with money. Real success in life follows 
the faithful discharge of the obligations and duties im- 
posed by human relationships, and the satisfaction and 
happiness associated with vigorous physical, intellect- 
ual, and moral effort. 




SCIENCE 

The term science, in its true application, denotes 
accurate observation, the clear discernment and ac- 
cumulation of facts derived therefrom, and the classi- 
fication of knowledge based upon verified evidence. 
Briefly, science is systematized knowledge. 

The beginnings of science are traced back to ani- 
mals, the man-animal obviously included, when cerebral 
development gave rise to awareness, perception, in- 
stinct and intelligence, after a long period of evolution, 
in which the potential factors of heredity and environ- 
ment were effectually involved. Primitive man ob- 
served the phenomena of Nature and, in primitive fash- 
ion, associated and classified, though imperfectly, 
whatever he observed. The phenomena he witnessed 
caused inferences and conclusions, since both observa- 
tion and inference are the outcome of allied brain 
functions. Animals of any species acquired, recurrent 
impressions from what they observed and experienced 
and thus in effect came to know, among other things, 
that some animals not of their species were dangerous 
enemies. Therefore, whenever the nearness of foes 
was detected, either by the sense of sight or the sense 
of odor, escape from impending danger became a con- 
trolling impulse, and their means of locomotion were 
quickly employed. By knowledge thus acquired the 
lives of animals were preserved to continue their 
struggle for existence; to participate in the propaga- 
tion and the further evolution of their species. 

Intelligence or the ability to acquire knowledge 

73 



74 SCIENCE 

and to utilize it, with respect to man, as compared with 
the instinct of lower animals is altogether one of de- 
gree. Within the scope of their intelligence the lower 
animals are no less scientific in obtaining and practi- 
cally applying their knowledge than is the man-ani- 
mal. They reason, in however primitive a sense, from 
cause to effect. The conclusion is perhaps admissable 
that if many individuals of the genus homo would 
as closely observe Nature as do some of the lower 
animals, scientific knowledge would surely make more 
rapid strides. The distinct tendency of some forms of 
so-called enlightenment lead men from rather than 
toward Nature, observationally and otherwise. 

To trace the earlier beginnings of science along 
the line from remote times to later and more recent 
evolutionary development, would require volumes. 
The limitations of a brief essay are therefore obvious. 

The methods of modern science involve careful, 
critical observation in the numerous fields of scientific 
activity. Reason, the highest and most complex func- 
tion of brain matter, enables man to reason from cause 
to effect in contemplating natural processes and phe- 
nomena. Science requires essentially deductive and in- 
ductive reasoning — reasoning from general to partic- 
ular and from particular to general. Mere conjecture 
is not science. The methods of science may and do re- 
quire tentative and hypothetical considerations, but 
scientific conclusions are based upon facts derived from 
unmistakable evidence. 

True scientific methods are exacting. Observed 
inaccuracies and incoherencies are ruled out, ex- 
cept in so far as they may suggest or anticipate final 
verities. Much that passes for science by reason of 
superficial thinking, and because of timorous educa- 
tors fettered by ecclesiasticism, may be in part true, 
but is frequently false. Pseudo-science — a mixture of 



SCIENCE 75 

truth and error and not palpable error as a whole — is 
one of the dangerous foes of humanity. The popular 
habit of associating authority with those whose real 
scientific knowledge is scanty, because of their popu- 
larity or prominence, is a habit fraught with much 
harm, in a true educational sense. A scientific truth 
is such, utterly regardless of mere ipsi dixits and as- 
sertions. 

The history of the development of modern science 
is a long record, more or less incomplete as to details, 
of the vast and laborious efforts of diligent, painstaking 
intellectual workers engaged in taking observations, 
in making tireless microscopic investigations, and in 
collating and organizing facts thus derived, in every 
branch of science, not excepting those of vegetable and 
animal life. 

Within the past two centuries, particularly during 
the nineteenth century, marvelous strides have been 
made in all departments of scientific achievement. 
Although as late as 1859, when Charles Darwin be- 
gan his epochal publications on the "Origin of Species, " 
and "Descent of Man," comprehending "natural se- 
lection" and the "survival of the fittest," which were 
in part contemporaneous with the investigations and 
findings of Wallace, scientists possessed only a paucity 
of illuminating knowledge, no clearness of vision and 
no consensus of opinion, with regard to the origin of 
animal species, including that of man. Lucretius, a 
Greek philosopher who lived 500 years before what 
is termed the Christian era had, with marvelous intui- 
tion and prophetic cleverness, anticipated a number of 
the facts of modern science. In later centuries other 
minds entertained similar conceptions but, respecting 
the gradual evolution of animals during a long period 
of time from remote ancestors, it was Darwin and Wal- 
lace who set the scientific world aflame — rocked 



76 SCIENCE 

theology on its very foundation and brought forth tu- 
multuous, vehement, and bitter denunciation. Dur- 
ing the earlier part of the nineteenth century, other 
branches of science were developing with some rapidity, 
and since then their progress has been accel- 
erated. Now scientific knowledge has become so gen- 
eralized as to be interwoven with a majority of the 
undertakings of mankind in the more advanced quarters 
of the globe. 

To enumerate the results wrought by the pains- 
taking and incessant labors of those engaged in obtain- 
ing and collating scientific knowledge, and of those 
employed in applying information derived therefrom 
to the practical needs of mankind, would be a long and 
laborious task, and such an undertaking cannot there- 
fore, in very large part, be attempted here. A few gen- 
eralizations must suffice : 

Purely rational theories with respect to the origin 
of the solar system, constitute one of the gifts of science 
to man. The verified astronomical knowledge relating 
to the character, mutual attractions, and orbital move- 
ments of the various members of the system, and of the 
system itself, reflects great credit upon the intellectual 
genius of a few master minds. That firmly 
established astronomical knowledge bearing upon the 
evolution of solar systems and planets from nebulous 
matter in spiral or vortex movement should, in due 
course of time, be followed by definite knowledge re- 
specting the evolution of all forms of vegetable and 
animal life on our planet, appears to be the logical re- 
sult of following well-determined lines of observation 
and investigation respecting Natural processes. 

Other bequeathments of science to mankind are 
as follows: 

Geology, as outlined in standard works on the sub- 
ject, affords a wealth of knowledge as to the super- 



SCIENCE 77 

imposed rock formations of the earth, and the way in 
which they came to be formed as they are, while pal- 
eontology supplies a vast fund of the most dependable 
data upon which to estimate the time when the numer- 
ous fossils found in the various or successive rock form- 
ations were in part the anatomies of animals now long 
extinct, as well as of species existing to-day. 

Chemistry, inorganic and organic, in its various 
branches is the source of a great volume of systema- 
tized knowledge that is being constantly utilized in al- 
most every department of practical human effort. 
Chemists not only deal with atomic-molecular com- 
binations in the formation of innumerable inorganic 
compounds, but have for some years been applying 
their knowledge in the great domain of chemico-bio- 
logical investigation, until it is no longer a reckless 
guess that the time will come when the origin of or- 
ganic life, with all the elements and other complexes 
therewith associated, will be as fully comprehended as 
are any other established facts of Nature. Advanced 
biology treats of organic life as having been evolved 
from inorganic matter. 

Anatomy and physiology, both of the most vital 
import, in that they relate directly and indirectly to 
the well-being of humanity, are in very considerable 
part no longer complications of unsystematized knowl- 
edge, plus guesswork. 

The achievements of the surgery of science, and 
of the sciences and arts dealing with the prevention and 
cure of diseases, and the alleviation of human suffering 
are a great and continuous boon to mankind. The 
employment of anaesthetics, one of the many instru- 
mentalities discovered by scientific investigation, has 
saved or prolonged millions of lives. In common with 
the utilization of various other revelations of science, 
the use of anaesthetics to avert extreme suffer- 



78 SCIENCE 

ing during surgical operations, was sternly opposed 
as contrary to an "inspired" injunction in sacred liter- 
ature. 

Physiological psychology and psychophysics, relat- 
ing to neural and cerebral activities, are gradually ex- 
posing the groundlessness and absurdity of meta- 
physical psychology or the "ology" of originating and 
weaving together attractive assumptions. 

The dynamics, mechanics, and electricity of science, 
in their manifold and utilitarian applications, are far 
beyond computation in their extended service to hu- 
manity. 

Science has developed a system of blood testing, 
requiring such delicacy as to go beyond the reaches of 
microscopic investigation; of chemical method. For 
example these tests show, in the language of Dr. Henry 
Smith Williams "that man is more clearly related to the 
old world monkeys than the monkeys of the new world, 
our closest relatives being the chimpanzee, the gorilla, 
and the orang, in the order named." 

Science is now not much more than fairly started 
in discovering and mastering microbes — germs that 
contribute to the development of organisms, and germs 
ever at work destroying human and other lives — yet 
amazing results have been attained. Unimpeded 
science in many of its departments, including biology, 
physiology, bacteriology, therapeutics and surgery, will 
work many miracles in the course of time. 

* * * * 

The average mortal, engaged in a more or less 
severe struggle for existence, enjoys the various bless- 
ings and benefits of modern science without giving 
more than a passing thought respecting the source of 
such benefits — they come so easily to form a part of 
the daily experiences of humanity that reflection upon 
them rarely seems worth while. Even those who 



SCIENCE 79 

openly taboo science or tacitly antagonize certain of its 
branches, fearing that it will undermine the lodging 
places of credulity, are not slow to accept every possible 
advantage which it offers to augment their earthly con- 
veniences and comforts. They accept the contributions 
of science, provided their emotional feelings are not 
annoyingly disturbed. 

Were the human race to be deprived of the sup- 
porting advantages, the helpfulness, and benefits de- 
rived from modern science in all its branches, mankind 
would rapidly retrogress, and the retrogression would 
be attended by misery and suffering beyond computa- 
tion. Assumed agencies apart from Nature, with which 
preposterous claims are usually associated, would prove 
impotent and futile in attempting to check the back- 
ward movements of humanity. Reason and verified 
knowledge, associated with justice and morality, are the 
effectual instrumentalities which must ever advance 
and maintain the most vital interests of mankind; must 
ever determine the highest standards of civilization. 

3JC JfC 3J» 5f» 

Opposition to the application of improved mechan- 
ical and numerous other achievements of scientific skill, 
and to the application of information respecting the at- 
tainment of manifold physical comforts and enjoyments, 
is not nearly so strong as antagonism to the elements of 
progress which disturb the composure of mind of in- 
dividuals in matters related to religion, politics, educa- 
tion, and social affairs. The popular application of 
scientific knowledge has been making rapid progress in 
utilitarian and commercial channels; in the increase 
of wealth accumulations attended by many debilitating 
luxuries, and in the multiplication of contrivances to 
lessen physical labor and largely increase opportunities 
for recreation and idleness. Meanwhile, the service 
of scientific facts relating to the real origin of human 



80 SCIENCE 

existence, to man's place in Nature, and to his natural 
and rational responsibilities — morally, intellectually, 
and socially — has been sparingly recognized and em- 
ployed. There has been, and there continues to be, 
much greater concern for science as a contributor to 
individual and national wealth than interest in science 
as a means of impressing upon mankind the serious 
obligations of human existence, or as a rational instru- 
ment in the service of man's natural morality, capable 
of teaching correct moral concepts and natural prin- 
ciples of justice and of showing their application in the 
practical life of man. 

Religious prejudices and predilections, largely of 
creedal origin and strenuously maintained by eccle- 
siastical systems and authority, continue to check the 
popular dissemination of scientific knowledge and the 
appreciation of the plain logic of scientific facts. Until 
the truths of science are fully and effectively applied to 
all the natural and earthly affairs of mankind substan- 
tial progress toward the highest possible achievements 
of humanity, as a whole, will continue to be much 
retarded. 






THEOLOGY THE FOE OF 
HUMAN PROGRESS 

The term theology refers principally to the body of 
doctrines concerning a supposed extra-mundane God 
and his nature and relations, which has developed 
within the Christian church, having the authority of 
Scripture as a basis. It denotes a formative and direc- 
tive influence in the domain of religious belief and 
practice, shaped by an assumed knowledge of the 
Supernatural. 

The theology of supernaturalism postulates the 
existence of a power or agency beyond Nature and 
all its operations and observed phenomenal sequences. 
Starting with this pure assumption respecting the 
unknown, the exponents of theology piously claim to 
be invested with intimate and detailed knowledge of 
the supernatural and its plans with reference to the 
existence and disposition of human life. 

Since, however, the supernatural is not known to 
exist, it cannot logically be held to sustain any known 
relationship to the facts and truths derived from ob- 
servation of natural phenomena. 

The accumulation and organization of verified 
knowledge, upon which all human progress depends, 
involve the rational activities of mankind. Inasmuch 
as supernaturalistic theology sustains no real relation- 
ship to the rational and natural, it is obviously irrational. 
That which is irrational is the natural foe of that which 

81 



82 THEOLOGY 

is rational — just as insanity is the foe of sanity, though 
both are the outcome of natural conditions ; so the 
irrationality of theology is doubtless quite as much 
the result of natural conditions as the rational methods 
of science. For it is quite as natural for the human 
mind to deceive itself with delusive conjectures 
as to accept rationally established facts. Hence, as 
the foe of science, and therefore of human progress, 
the theology of supernaturalism has always thriven 
upon ignorance and credulity, the natural and uncom- 
promising enemies of rational enlightenment. 

Mankind has always been largely influenced by 
mere conjectures and beliefs, and were it not for the 
balance-wheel of common sense, derived from the very 
rational experiences of existence, human progress 
would be impossible. The religious wars which re- 
duced the population of the earth by many millions 
in former centuries well illustrate the power of emo- 
tionalism fostered by theological conjectures. 
* * * # 

In remote times, as now, mere observation 
of the phenomena of Nature failed to satisfy 
the large portion of the human race. This objective 
knowledge derived by early man from Nature at close 
range, together with the experiences gained by inter- 
course with other members of his species, as well as 
his experience with lower animals, enabled him to meet, 
in goodly part at least, his earthly needs. But even 
primitive man could not have been content with these 
limitations. Therefore, in due course, he found him- 
self engaged with whys and wherefores concerning 
what was to him unexplicable. His emotions and 
fears, his limited knowledge, and his rational reflections 
concerning his immediate surroundings, demanded ex- 
planations of the various phenomena of Nature which 
made strong impressions upon the cerebral portion 



THEOLOGY 83 

of his anatomy. Thus he was impelled to enquire 
whence, and how came into existence the earth, the 
sun, the moon, the stars, and so forth. He wanted to 
know, and was constrained to find out, as best he could. 
Being devoid of astronomical knowledge the only 
avenue open to him was that of conjecture. He fol- 
lowed it. When a particular conjecture seemed to 
satisfy a particular inquiry, he clung to it with tenacity, 
because it was a source of satisfaction to him; it was 
the satisfaction of contentment. Contentment is the 
basis of conservatism. He became conservative, and 
since then has had millions of followers. The more 
he conjectured the more his conjectural conclusions 
appeared to him as final explanations, and he thus be- 
came, in the vast realm of conjecture, a fanatic in 
embryo. When he found out that his associates and 
others could be variously and advantageously influ- 
enced by sundry conjectures, he began to regard him- 
self of much importance, and found ways and means, 
including those of persuasion and coercion, to subject 
his fellow mortals to his conjectural view-points. Thus 
theology emerged from embryo as a vigorous young- 
ster, giving promise of much future potency in the wide 
conjectural field of human activity, where egotism and 
presumptive assertiveness are accepted as indicative 
of finalities; where belief transcends knowledge in 
importance. The birth of theology marked the intro- 
duction of the traditions and myths that have by per- 
sistent propagation so strongly figured in the history 
of religions. Moreover, the birth of theology with its 
assumptive explanations of the supernatural, or the un- 
known, denoted the oncoming of the age of faith in the 
efficacy of supernatural agencies, the age of obstinate 
and relentlessly cruel opposition, on the part of the ex- 
ponents of faiths, dogmas, and creeds, to the findings 
of those engaged in ascertaining and advancing scien- 



84 THEOLOGY 

tific knowledge — in laying the very foundations of hu- 
man progress. How vitally important it has been to 
the human race that, while theology was being deeply 
rooted in the minds of men during former centuries, 
there were here and there those more disposed to 
scientific investigation and reason than to accept cur- 
rent and popular conjectures — those in whom the rea- 
soning function of the brain was stronger than the con- 
jectural function! The minds of some men were right- 
fully inclined to repudiate the presentation of error 
in the garb of truth. They were the skeptics, heretics, 
and infidels of the age in which they lived. They are 
the skeptics and infidels of the present age, and are 
much more numerous than in former times. 

While theology enthralled the minds of great num- 
bers of believers, the men of a scientific bent of mind 
were gradually gaining strength, and the very oppo- 
sition that was intended to destroy their influence ulti- 
mately contributed to it — illustrating as it were the 
successful outcome of a "struggle for existence" on the 
part of those who reasoned and sought evidence in 
preference to conjectures and superstitious faith. 
Nevertheless, theology came to be a monstrous hind- 
rance to human progress because its influence was de- 
structively arrayed against the acquisition and dis- 
semination of any fact or truth of science which ap- 
peared to question the validity of theological claims 
or conclusions however inherently preposterous and 
absurd. Thus it stood, and continues in large part 
to stand, in opposition to human knowledge based upon 
rational, verified evidence. Thousands of tons of schol- 
arly volumes treating of the labyrinthian and brain-be- 
fuddling mysteries of the supernatural, assumed to be 
made plain by ingenious conjectures and verbal gym- 
nastics, fill metaphysical libraries for the "enlighten- 
ment and salvation" of mankind. 



THEOLOGY 85 

A few of the many possible illustrations, showing 
how the exponents of theology conjectured in times 
past, how then, as now, they differed among them- 
selves, and how they concertedly opposed with their 
vigorously active theological cudgels those who dared 
to advocate the findings of reason and science, and thus 
obstructed human progress, follow: 

The early fathers of the church, in contemplating 
with childish seriousness the conjectures, traditions, 
myths, and so forth, transmitted to them, however in- 
directly, from Assyrian, Chaldean, Babylonian, Egyp- 
tian, and other sources, and assorted, compiled, and 
partly incorporated in the first book of the Bible, were 
not in agreement concerning the exact meaning and 
implications relating to the origin of the earth and man 
set forth in the first two chapters of Genesis, and which 
appeared to them to involve very annoying contradic- 
tions. However, they finally found compromise, agree- 
ment, and consolation by conjecturing upon conjec- 
tures. 

The Mosaic account of creation in Genesis, as be- 
ing the actual work of the hands or voice of an anthro- 
pomorphic God with enlarged human attributes, seems 
to have been, as a whole, unanimously accepted by the 
fathers. It is also apparent that by a very large ma- 
jority they were explicit in their contentions that no 
material substance existed prior to the fiat or work of 
the God of Genesis. This explanation of the crea- 
tion of all things from nothing was accepted in an en- 
tirely literal sense. St. Augustine, perhaps the greatest 
among the early church fathers, was evidently 
somewhat bothered by a vague notion of pre-existing 
matter and reasoned that "although the world has been 
made of some material, that very same material must 
have been made out of nothing." Thus, in one impor- 
tant particular, creation was finally disposed of, to the 



86 THEOLOGY 

satisfaction of the fathers. But other disconcerting con- 
siderations arose. 

The next important question to be determined was 
the time in which creation was accomplished. By the 
light of Genesis, two contradictory views became ap- 
parent, the one representing that six days, each with 
morning and evening, were required for the stupendous 
task; the other, that the whole work was instantan- 
eously accomplished. Much grave discussion preceded 
the agreement entered into by the fathers that those 
who contended for instantaneous creation were entitled 
to equal consideration with those who believed that 
the creative work was done in six days of twenty-four 
hours each. There arose later perplexing difficulties on 
account of the disparity of the two views noted, but the 
fathers, with their dexterous manipulation of texts and 
phrases, dissolved the dilemma that confronted them, 
and this dual view of creation became absolutely au- 
thoritative during the Middle Ages. Luther, famous 
for having inaugurated the great Reformation, and not 
infrequently able to master perplexing problems, as- 
serted with his usual positiveness that Moses spoke 
properly and plainly and neither allegorically nor fig- 
uratively," and that therefore "the world with all its 
creatures, was created in six days." And then he turned 
about and contended how, by a great miracle, the whole 
of creation was also instantaneous. Melancthon, an- 
other prominent figure during the period of the Re- 
formation, also accepted the conflicting views as being 
in harmony, citing the text: "He spake and they were 
made." Calvin opposed the idea of instantaneous crea- 
tion by showing, to his own satisfaction at least, that 
the world was not quite six thousand years old and 
nearing its end, and saying that "creation was extended 
through six days that it might not be tedious for us to 
occupy the whole of life in the consideration of it." 



THEOLOGY 87 

How creation came about from nothing, and the 
time required for the undertaking having been defin- 
itely fixed, the theologians proceeded to establish 
the exact date of creation. After the great 
minds of the church had profoundly conjectured, the 
grave and significant conclusion was reached that 
"heaven and earth, centre and circumference, was cre- 
ated all together, in the same instant, and clouds full 
of water/' and that "this work took place and man 
was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B. C, 
at nine o'clock in the morning." It is of very signifi- 
cant interest to note that for many centuries previous to 
this momentous decision of the church fathers, regard- 
ing the exact "time" of creation, there was in existence 
on "October 23, 4004 B. C, at nine o'clock in the 
morning" a highly developed civilization in the cities 
of Egypt, and that a similar state of civilization also 
existed at the same time in Asia. It is only fair to 
assume that the early church fathers were not in pos- 
session of this information in course of their conclusive 
deliberations respecting the exact date and hour when 
"the heavens and the earth and all that in them is" 
were instantly catapulted into existence from nothing! 
This conclusion is quite specific in its definiteness. 
However, the use of the term Trinity, with its implica- 
tions, gave rise to more discussion, some of the theo- 
logians maintaining that the words "Let us make" in 
Genesis meant that the entire Trinity directly created 
all things, while others announced the conclusion that 
"peculiar combinations of two persons of the Trinity 
did the work," despite the Anathasian creed which 
launched condemnation against all who should "con- 
found the persons" or divide the substance of the 
Trinity. 

While the fathers of the church were determining- 
conjectural conclusions, evolutionary theories were de- 



88 THEOLOGY 

veloping. In the sixteenth century Giordano Bruno, an 
Italian monk, clearly anticipated the "nebular hypoth- 
esis." This was more than the theologians could 
tolerate. The Inquisition at Rome decreed his murder, 
and his ideas appeared to vanish with his body, which 
was consumed by the flames ignited by theology. 

Ideas, containing germs of truth, may vanish for a 
period, but not finally. Between the two centuries sep- 
arated by Bruno's death, came in the order mentioned, 
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, 
and when their works were completed the old theolog- 
ical account of the creation of the universe had been 
torn to shreds, even though the theologians of that pe- 
riod failed to appreciate the fact; even though many 
theologians of the present day are unable, or unwilling 
to grasp the significance of the great and permanent 
achievements of the five intellectual giants named. 
Throughout the realm of theology rang the outcry 
against "atheism" and a fierce war raged, with the 
ignorance and credulity of the masses enlisted in sup- 
port of the theologians and their elaborate conjectures. 
Therefore, the science of the early masters was com- 
pelled to halt at times and then move slowly. Those 
who thought in terms not understood by the credulous 
and ignorant loved life, like other mortals. They 
naturally felt that their living anatomies should not be- 
come fuel for fires of the Inquisition, though many of 
them perished, rather than recant. 

The consensus of theological teaching relating to 
the creation of animals became firmly established, with 
a few dissenters here and there. The great author- 
ity of Luther distinctly favored the literal acceptance 
of Scripture as the main source of natural science. He 
asked "Why should Moses use allegory when he is not 
speaking of allegorical creatures or an allegorical world, 
but of real creatures, and a visible world, which can 



THEOLOGY 89 

be seen, felt and grasped? Moses called things by their 
right names. * * * * I hold that the animals 
took their being at once upon the word of God, as did 
also the fishes of the sea." 

To present very briefly the many thousands of in- 
stances of theological vengeance inflicted, with or with- 
out fatal consequences, upon those who, through 
the light afforded by the accumulation of scientific 
knowledge, or upon those whose common sense 
rejected the credulous assumptions of theology, 
would require volumes. In creating, stimulating, and 
propagating among the ignorant and credulous re- 
ligious creeds and revengeful fanaticism the theology 
of supernaturalism, as revealed in the earlier centuries 
of Christianity, lead Oswald to declare: "The blood 
of thirty millions of our fellowmen cries out against the 
nature-hating fanatic who inculcated the belief in the 
sinfulness ('original sin') of our natural instincts, the 
guilt of scepticism, and the possibility of Satanic in- 
carnations ! Christianity has turned whole nations of 
freedom-loving men into slaves and flunkeys. * * * 
The worst tyranny that ever oppressed the children of 
this earth was perpetuated in the name of the Christian 
God !" — the God of the theologians. Shelly, the natural 
philosopher and poet, in summarizing his conclusions, 
respecting the destruction of human life through the 
various agencies employed by the exponents and devo- 
tees of theology, eventually involved in Christianity 
as the source and fostering support of atrocious credul- 
ity, says : "2,000,000 were butchered in the wars 
against the pagan Saxons, Sarmatians, and Scandan- 
avians; 1,000,000 in the wars against the Arian heretics; 
5,000,000 in the Crusades; (the Spanish Saracens were 
exterminated) ; 1,000,000 in the man-hunt against 
the Albigenses, Huguenots, Waldenses, the Netherland 
insurgents and the Thirty Year's War; 1,000,000 by 



90 THEOLOGY 

the 'Holy Inquisition'; 9,000,000 for witchcraft— all 
slaughtered through the fiendish fanaticism and hellish 
hate of the pious bigots" — representing the theology 
that found Scriptural warrant, in part, in the following 
sayings attributed to the Christ of the New Testament : 
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, 
but a sword!" — (St. Matthew). "If any man come to 
me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and 
children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own 
life also, he cannot be my disciple." — (St. Luke). The 
authority for the torturing and murdering of witches 
rested on the Biblical statement: "Suffer not a witch 
to live. ,, After the Reformation Protestantism shared 
with Roman Catholicism in the destruction of human 
life. John Calvin, the founder of Presbyterianism, was 
instrumental in causing the life of Servetus to be ex- 
tinguished at the stake because he had the temerity to 
dispute one or more of the dogmas of the theology 
enunciated by Calvin. When the "godly" Puritan 
fathers came to the shores of the United States to 
escape religious persecution they soon adopted the 
methods of their former persecutors and exercised 
their newly found liberty (for themselves only) by 
burning witches — to the perpetual disgrace of Mass- 
achusetts. In their lust for persecutions they banished, 
among others, Roger Williams, who took a leading 
part in founding the State of Rhode Island. 

The advent of nearly every branch of science pre- 
cipitated the violent opposition of supernaturalists. 
They denounced the astronomy of science, the geology 
of science, the chemistry of science, the anthropology 
and paleontology of science, the psychology of science, 
the pathology of science, the surgery of science, the 
anaesthetics of science and practically all that pertained 
to the more or less scientific diagnosis and treatment 
of diseases. In fact they could be depended upon to 



THEOLOGY 91 

decry, ridicule, anathematize, or issue bulls against any 
branch of science they deemed at variance with Scrip- 
tural texts and popular creeds and dogmas. Nearly 
every page of the history of theology is blurred and 
blackened by recorded instances of vengeance inflicted 
upon those who for any reason, scientific of other, 
questioned current theology, thus unmistakably show- 
ing that supernaturalism has always been piously and 
with much unction engaged in either retarding or at- 
tempting to destroy the progressive and helpful influ- 
ences of scientific knowledge and in retarding the pro- 
gress of humanity. Even now, in the first quarter of the 
twentieth century, the exponents of supernaturalism 
tenaciously adhere in large part to the theological dicta 
of earlier centuries. True enough, some of them, in- 
fluenced by "higher critics" of Bible texts and the en- 
lightenment of mankind through the application of ra- 
tional knowledge, are much more humane, more cau- 
tious, and obviously more cunning. However, those 
who nurture the notion that theological monstrosities 
are principally of the past indulge in superficial views. 

Present day theology from the orthodox standpoint 
will now be considered : 

Theologians for the most part continue insistently 
to contend that the Bible, from Genesis to Revela- 
lation, is the inspired word of God, in all particulars, 
and in its totality. 

They still insist upon the accuracy of the account 
of creation contained in Genesis; upon the unmythical 
character of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. 
They fail to see anything humorous or primitive in the 
successful tempting of Eve by a snake, the consequent 
"fall" of the first parents of the human race and the in- 
troduction of "original sin." They perceive in the He- 
braic account of the flood nothing in common with other 
flood myths, and accept with literalness the Munchau- 



92 THEOLOGY 

sen story of Jonah and the big fish. They believe that 
Joshua interposed a check upon the movement of a 
member of the solar system, without reckoning upon 
any disturbance of the "celestial" mechanism of Nature. 
They find no apparent difficulty in accepting the New 
Testament accounts of the "miraculous conception" of 
Jesus, the miracles he is reputed to have performed, 
his crucifixion and resurrection after three days, and 
his ascension into heaven. 

While quite apparently devoid of humor, and ob- 
livious to historical evidence, the verbose exponents 
of theologico-Biblical means of ensuring escape from 
eternal punishment and entrance into eternal bliss con- 
tinue to disregard the natural goodness of mankind. No 
theological doctrine so monstrously inhuman and dia- 
bolical was ever evolved in the brain of man as that re- 
specting eternal punishment for the struggling inhabi- 
tants of earth after a fleeting existence here. The fear 
and mystery which it has caused among masses of peo- 
ple is beyond calculation. In very truth it must have 
been the creation of a diseased brain, augmented in its 
aberrant functioning by diseased digestive organs. If, in 
this twentieth century a fanatic were for the first time 
seriously to propose and seek to disseminate such a 
dogma he would at once become a ripe subject for a 
commission in lunacy. No doubt of it! He would be 
regarded as evidencing mental alienation in a most ag- 
gravated form. Even among the most illiterate the in- 
fluence of this heinous dogma of delusion has been an 
ultimate failure considered as a "moral agent." For as 
a matter of fact it is their all too limited knowledge of 
the natural effects and consequences to those in the 
flesh, flowing from evil or wrongful deeds, that effect- 
ually and continuously figures as a preventive of such 
acts. Granted that acute fear like that aroused 
by picturing a lurid theological hell may serve 



THEOLOGY 93 

as a spasmodic deterrant of immorality or as a stimu- 
lant to orthodox faith, the preponderance and execra- 
tive influences of such a frightfully diabolical dogma 
suppress any consequences of a humanly uplifting kind. 

Another theological dogma, indicative of a dis- 
eased condition of the anatomy of its creator, is the 
Calvanistic doctrine of "foreordination" or "predes- 
tination." This, in effect, makes it appear that "from 
the foundation of the world God has predestined" a 
determinate, if not large proportion of the human race, 
to a place of eternal damnation where the "flames as- 
cend forever," thus extirpating all hope here and here- 
after for those predestined to "endless torment." 

Again it may well be said that it is impossible to cal- 
culate how much suffering and misery have been thrust 
upon millions of really and naturally good people by 
reason of the propagation of this iniquitously debased 
doctrine. Even many of the most pious devotees of 
theology were in times past, and are no doubt even 
now, frequently and greatly distressed by the theo- 
logical possibility or probability of their suffering the 
eternal torments of hell. 

While the Rightfulness of fear has been in a cer- 
tain measure eliminated from pulpit exhortations, the 
dogmas of eternal punishment and predestination have 
by no means been excluded from ecclesiastical sources 
of orthodox theology. If those in authority, in whom 
is vested the power to change or obliterate the dog- 
mas, doctrines and creeds of theology, are making any 
real progress the information of such theological pro- 
gress is not current. No doubt they are sufficiently wily 
to be aware of the danger associated with such action. 
For it must follow that dogmas stoutly claimed to be 
the outcome of scholarly interpretations of the Holy 
Scriptures — altogether inspired of God — cannot be sep- 
arated from the theology of supernaturalism without 



94 THEOLOGY 

doing violence to the chief dogma of "inspiration/' or 
call into very serious question the capability and schol- 
arship of theological interpreters of the Bible. It con- 
tinues to be a fact that paranoiac exponents of endless 
torment for the wicked and unbelievers, scientists in- 
cluded, are yet popular in many sections of the United 
States, and their services are frequently in demand 
where it is thought they can be employed to arouse an 
increased interest in church work and enlarge church 
membership by exciting the credulity and the emo- 
tional fears of mankind. Some of the ubiquitous expon- 
ents of this type are by no means devoid of a keen sense 
of the importance of adequate, and more than adequate, 
pecuniary compensation for their noisy and uncouth 
demonstrations, recklessness of speech, and displays 
of crass ignorance respecting rational, verified knowl- 
edge. In some instances rude insolence and vulgar de- 
portment are associated with frenzied expostulations 
in holy places. 

The egoism, unction, and intruding officiousness of 
those who espouse theological dogmas are frequently 
in evidence. Their movements and utterances seem to 
be surrounded by an atmosphere of assumptive author- 
ity, and many of their emphatic claims would be gro- 
tesque, in addition to being groundless, if they were not 
associated with matters of very serious human and 
earthly concern. During the gigantic world war theo- 
logical propagandists (among the Allies) were very 
busily engaged throughout Christendom in formulating 
and disseminating opinions and conclusions quite fav- 
orable to theology, respecting the causes of the war. 
They mixed, as they usually do when the exigencies of 
theology require it, truth with a conglomerate mass of 
prevarication. Theologians and their retainers affirm- 
ed in a general, though not obtrusive way, that the Ger- 
man Kaiser and his advisers were really responsible 



THEOLOGY 95 

for the great calamity. True! In the next breath they 
would assert that altogether non-Christian influences 
were chiefly the efficient cause of the war ! False ! To 
the uninformed, depending upon the assertions of the- 
ology, and not upon facts, this contradiction was not 
apparent. But the exponents of theology did not 
tell their disciples that the German Kaiser was a very 
devout adherent and conspicuous enunciator of the the- 
ology of supernaturalism ; that he duplicated and tripli- 
cated, time and again, the examples cited in the Old 
Testament, relating to events wherein the power of 
Jehovah marvelously sustained those engaged in ruth- 
lessly slaughtering their fellow human creatures, spar- 
ing neither woman nor child. They did not. And they 
made no reference to the fact that the theology of the 
Kaiser and their own theology were derived from the 
same source and that both were, therefore, in large part 
at least, the same in kind. Nor did they audibly or 
otherwise express the fact that the theology of super- 
naturalism was a powerful supporter of the German 
Autocracy; that the Kaiser and his subordinates always 
maintained a very watchful concern for theology, well 
knowing its importance as a guardian of autocratic 
power when rendered subservient and serviceable 
through the (Lutheran) State church. Theology was 
a vital and potently influential part of German Autoc- 
racy and, therefore, it fully shares responsibility with 
Autocracy for the slaughter of millions of mankind. 

Exponents of the theology of supernaturalism — 
the self-constituted, verbose, and unctious guardians of 
the "spiritual welfare'' of the human race — are usually 
very active in promulgating catchy claims, irrespective 
of the falsity of such claims. It may be noted in passing 
that a pious falsehood is particularly reprehensible, or 
even infamous, because the theological authority 
which sustains it renders it liable of acceptance by those 



96 THEOLOGY 

who confide, without question, in such authority. 

During the great war caused by insane ambition 
for world power, when it was sought to subjugate the 
people of the earth to the rule of Autocracy, with the 
Kaiser's theological God in partnership in the un- 
dertaking, the God of theology was appealed to on all 
sides for protection and support. While over six mil- 
lions of human beings were being slaughtered, while as 
many millions more were suffering pain and all forms 
of wretchedness and misery, numberless prayers on all 
sides were being made, invoking the aid of the God of 
theology^-the God invested, according to supernatur- 
alistic theology, with omnipotent power and able there- 
fore to have prevented, by fiat or otherwise, the 
slaughter of six millions of innocent men, who were 
in no wise responsible for the starting, or the continu- 
ation, of the great shedding of human blood. Imagine 
the God of theology looking down upon such an awful 
conflict, a witness of its attendant sufferings and 
miseries, and abstaining from intervention! And 
what happened at the close of the awful war? The 
exponents and devotees of the theology of supernat- 
uralism were, for sufficient reason, almost frenzied with 
joy, but to whom did the thanks of thousands upon 
thousands, yea millions, of the Allies go? Why about 
three-fourths to the God of theology, and the remain- 
der to the heroic, ably-Generaled boys who won the 
victory! What an astounding illustration of man's 
ingratitude to man ! 

The reader may enquire : "How can it be that the 
theology of supernaturalism so persistenly endures 
in so many quarters of the earth?" The ques- 
tion is in place. The answer: At the very birth of 
the theology of supernaturalism the exponents and 
devotees thereof began to associate with their other- 
world fancies their earthly knowledge, thus obtain- 



THEOLOGY 97 

ing material support for their conjectural claims 
and vagaries. This support has stood plainly revealed 
for centuries by substantial evidence in the form of en- 
during and imposing edifices, magnificently adorned — 
the master-work of architects and builders, sculptors, 
decorators and painters. This materialistic support of 
the theology of supernaturalism also comprises the ex- 
tensive personal and pecuniary interests involved in the 
propagation of theology, requiring the organization of 
large ecclesiastical bodies, with numerous auxiliaries. 
Aside from the cost of procuring from time to time 
and maintaining in good order church property, vast 
sums of money had to be provided by the faithful to 
support those variously engaged in theological work 
in all its departmental ramifications. Briefly, the the- 
ology of supernaturalism came to be placed on a 
worldly, business basis, and remains substantially so 
placed. It also came to be, and so continues to be, 
the personal, pecuniary business of all those deriving 
compensation from theological or allied forms of ac- 
tivity, to carefully look after their worldly interests. 
Perfectly natural. Moreover, the exponents of theol- 
ogy should be recompensed for their efforts, just like 
other mortals, and it becomes the obligation of the 
devotees of theology to furnish the worldly funds. But, 
the theology of supernaturalism has very much more 
than financial support. What then, in addition, does 
it possess to hold it intact? Not content with its power- 
ful hold upon ignorance, credulity and superstition it 
has successfully sought the support of natural morality 
— enlightened by human experience and knowledge 
gained outside the boundaries of theological specula- 
tion and has utilized this morality invested in man by 
Nature to aid in continuing its vigorous existence. 
Despite the dogma of "original sin" theology accepts 
and makes much of natural morality, and encourages 



98 THEOLOGY 

such morality (while denying its efficacy as a "saving 
spiritual influence") so long as its supporters do not 
mingle troublesome or dangerous doubts or unbeliefs 
with their enlightened natural morality. The expon- 
ents of supernaturalistic theology seem intuitively to 
regard proper human conduct as one of its vitally es- 
sential supporters, and yet they damn morality not 
allied to credulity — to faith in the supernatural. The 
leading luminaries of theological supernaturalism and 
their satellites have always been inclined, for sufficient 
reason — notwithstanding their emphatic claims as to 
"salvation by faith" only — not to despise the potent 
influence of natural morality, if unallied to unbelief and 
heresy. In issues between faith and fact natural moral- 
ity has always been swept aside by orthodox theology 
as of no saving importance whatsoever. The only sav- 
ing hope for a moral person is bound up in a belief in, 
or acceptance of, the supernatural claims of orthodox 
theology. Thus theology has always been the foe of 
natural morality and, therefore, the foe of human pro- 
gress. And still another powerful supporter of the the- 
ology of supernaturalism, is the monopolistic appro- 
priation to itself and to its own credit, of all the loftiest, 
yet perfectly natural impulses of mankind — love, char- 
ity, mercy, kindness, and good-will. All these theology 
appropriates to itself, and then proudly exclaims: "Be- 
hold, how divine!" How well supernaturalistic 
theology has succeeded by seeking and monopolizing 
the natural in mankind in augmenting and subserving 
its "spiritual" and worldly interests, is quite plain to all 
who will take the pains to observe and reflect. Per- 
haps the most potent of all the influences which support 
orthodox theology are revealed by the purely social in- 
fluences, which everywhere naturally bind together 
with bands of steel the interdependent units of society. 
Without these influences it would have been impossible 



THEOLOGY 99 

for humanity to have ever emerged from lower stages 
of evolutionary development. It need hardly be added 
that correlated with the social influence — in all that it 
implies — is the almost purely emotional influence of 
music, much of which, aside from the intellectually re- 
pulsive, doleful, nerve-racking kind, is of distinct benefit 
to humanity. All that is supernatural with respect to 
music is derived from the theology of supernaturalism. 
However, the exponents of theology know the sup- 
porting value of music. It is a very attractive and help- 
ful asset. 

The theology of supernaturalism abides and while, 
through the slowly increasing rational enlightenment of 
the masses, it is lessening its grip upon humanity, it re- 
mains a widely potent factor in human affairs because, 
among other prominent considerations, of the large sup- 
port derived from "intellectuals" and "popular lights" 
who remain under theological influences from force of 
habit and for social and other reasons. Many of these 
supporters know no more about the Bible, from per- 
sonal contact, than they do about ancient hieroglyphics. 

Taking into full and fair account the foregoing 
considerations, and noting with emphasis the fact ob- 
vious to all painstaking students of mankind that the 
rational development and enlightenment of humanity 
is, as a whole, far below the standard frequently and 
boastfully associated therewith, there need be no won- 
der why the theology of supernaturalism continues to 
thrive, or continues to exert a potent influence, however 
destructive its character, respecting some essentially 
vital particulars. 

As long as human ignorance, credulity, and super- 
stition continue to thrive, so long will the exponents 
of the theology of supernaturalism claim a monopoly 
of the natural virtues of mankind and of the material 
support which these virtues attract, for the glorification 



100 THEOLOGY 

of the divinity incarnated in the theology of super- 
naturalism. 

Verily, (all solacing notions about established hu- 
man liberty to the contrary) the theology of super- 
naturalism abides with much potency and must be ser- 
iously reckoned with as a foe of human progress 
whenever it exerts its power, directly or indirectly as 
such a foe; as a foe of true human liberty whenever it 
essays vaingloriously and insiduously to interpose its 
power; as a foe of truth whenever it refuses to submit 
its dogmas and creeds to the light of investigation, an- 
alysis and reason, or whenever it anathematizes, ma- 
ligns and bears false witness against those who 
do submit its dogmas and creeds to crucial tests; as a 
foe to the human race whenever it essays to scoff at or 
belittle natural morality and deify blind faith; as a foe 
to human progress whenever it brazenly, or clandes- 
tinely seeks to subordinate the acquirement of rational, 
verified knowledge to the material, as well as to the 
purely speculative interests of the theology of super- 
naturalism; as a foe of truth and justice when it accords 
to itself and utilizes full credit for the tremendous and 
determining influences resulting from the application 
of rational, scientific, civilizing, and humanly helpful 
knowledge of whatsoever kind. Moreover, the theol- 
ogy of supernaturalism is false to the truth when it as- 
serts that nearly all that is good and humane in our so- 
termed "Christian civilization'* must be ascribed to the 
dominance of theology, or when it employs lan- 
guage to that effect. Again, the theology of super- 
naturalism is a foe, a very dangerous foe, to 
human liberty when it openly or covertly under- 
takes to usurp the authority and power of the gov- 
ernment of, for, and by the people to advance and pro- 
tect either the purely speculative or the material inter- 
ests of theological supernaturalism. Readers of this 



THEOLOGY 101 

essay will seriously note — if they love the liberty they 
are now enjoying, and have thought for the welfare of 
those who come after them — that the theology of super- 
naturalism has ever maintained a watchful eye on gov- 
ernmental power; that it has and will continue to be 
clandestinely and vigorously alert in deriving special 
protection from governmental sources. It has lost 
none of its old-time cunning, and old-time assumptions 
as to "divine" superiority. The union of church and 
state, in whole or even in small part, always has and 
always will prove destructive of rightful human liberty. 

In fairness to the early church fathers and in char- 
itable extenuation of their claims and dogmas, as they 
formulated them, it must be stated that they were 
greatly influenced by pure conjecture in the absence of 
very much verified rational knowledge not then access- 
ible to them. How far this extenuating consideration 
can be fairly entertained on behalf of the present day 
exponents of supernaturalistic theology is a question 
respectfully submitted to the reader for determination. 

In conclusion: Those who follow the paths of 
rational knowledge, the paths of human progress and 
substantial betterment, wherever they may lead, and 
who for evidential reasons entirely satisfactory to 
themselves absolutely refuse to accept the theology 
of supernaturalism, will always maintain — if they are 
fair minded — that those who do accept the theology of 
supernaturalism of whatsoever sort are clearly within 
their personal, individual, Or corporate rights and privi- 
leges, and therefore should be fully protected in all such 
rights and privileges. But, when the exponents and 
devotees of theology of any form of supernatural re- 
ligion delegate to themselves the authority to auda- 
ciously assume to dictate to their fellowmen what they 
shall or shall not believe, and when they contrive 
to obtain such material support of the govern- 



102 THEOLOGY 

ment as is not accorded to all other individuals 
and corporations, they certainly pass beyond their 
just rights; for in such manner they become the auto- 
crats of theological tyranny and the veritable foes of 
human progress. On the other hand, it must not for 
a moment be overlooked by those who repudiate the 
theology of supernaturalism, and who flatly refuse to 
accept its dogmas and creeds, that "believers" are fully 
entitled to all the rights common to mankind. 
In other words the individuals who compose the state 
or nation are entitled to equal rights, quite irrespective 
of their beliefs and unbeliefs. The importance of this 
consideration, virtually affecting human liberty is fre- 
quently disregarded by those who fail to appreciate the 
vital import of the liberty they themselves are enjoying. 
Full freedom in the exercise of rightful liberty, in 
thought and action, on the part of all the units of so- 
ciety will ensure the substantial and permanent pro- 
gress of mankind. Under the influence of such unre- 
stricted freedom the light of truth will eventually ban- 
ish the darkness of ignorance and error. 




RELIGION 



There is a universal tendency among mankind to conceive 
all beings like themselves. * * * The unknown 
causes which continually employ their thoughts, ap- 
pearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehen- 
ded to be of the same kind or species. Nor is it 
long before we ascribe to them thought and reason 
and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and 
figures of men. — Hume's Naturai, History of 
Reugion. 

Primarily, the emotion of fear, due to an innate 
love of life, gave rise to the religious element in pre- 
historic man. Historical man echoes the prehistoric* 
the primitive. Man feared before he worshipped the 
sun, the air, and water, and deified the elements. The 
phenomena of Nature either attracted or appalled him, 
and in both ways he was greatly influenced. Vitally af- 
fected by light and heat from the sun, he easily created 
and became a worshipper of a sun-god. Cognizing 
water and air as essential to his existence and well- 
being, he naturally conjectured and worshipped the 
gods of air and water, and in various ways became ac- 
customed to petition, to pray to his gods — the gods he 
had created within his brain. Through fear of harm 
from storms and thunderbolts and numerous dangers 
surrounding him, and to which he was constantly sub- 

103 



104 RELIGION 

jected, he discriminated between life-giving and help- 
ful influences and harmful and life-destroying agencies, 
and he created his gods accordingly, and feared and 
worshipped them. 

* * * * 

All forms of religion (employing the term religion 
to refer chiefly to assumptions associated with what 
is designated as supernaturalism) are typically repre- 
sentative of successive changes, growth, and decadence. 
They flourish so long as conditions, of whatsoever char- 
acter, are favorable to their development and continued 
existence. When the conditions are no longer favorable, 
either final dissolution or absorption into other forms 
necessarily follow. Changes in religious faiths and 
ceremonies are usually very slow, because of the per- 
sistence of the fixed habits of belief and thought of in- 
dividuals, and the strength of prevailing customs in all 
communities where religious beliefs are woven into 
the social fabric. This obviously accurate considera- 
tion is frequently overlooked by those who delude 
themselves with the expectation that the religious 
sentiment of a community can be very much changed 
in a relatively brief period of time. Mankind has al- 
ways been strongly inclined to follow beaten paths, not 
only in matters of religious faith, but also with re- 
spect to all the affairs of life. Intrusions upon estab- 
lished customs invite opposition, because it is very 
much easier for the average mortal to move "along 
lines of least resistance" than to turn aside and follow 
unfamiliar avenues of believing and thinking. It is far 
easier for many millions of the human race to believe 
seriously, or passively and indifferently, in some mi- 
raculous story or myth than it is for them to take note 
of evidence that would, if fairly well understood and 
appreciated by them, dissipate their belief in miracles 
and myths. In the course of centuries, in countries 



RELIGION 105 

where the education of the masses respecting demon- 
strable knowledge is a matter of serious public con- 
cern, changes in religious beliefs and in all other cus- 
toms are much more rapid than in parts of the globe 
where educational innovations are largely restricted 
among the greater portion of the population. Even 
in what are regarded as advanced civilized quarters 
fixed habits of belief and custom continue to vigorously 
resist what may be tantamount to an interfernce 
with the tranquility and conservatism associated with 
old and familiar paths. However, change is the or- 
der of the universe. No matter how slowly changes 
are made, universal change is inevitable. Evolutionary 
progress along religious lines and intersecting lines of 
thought associated with religion depend absolutely 
upon an increase in human enlightenment. 

The advent of Christianity began a new stage in 
the evolutionary development of a religion from ante- 
cedent forms of faith and worship. Christianity ap- 
propriated and absorbed, in a very natural way, parts 
of the older polytheistic religions which continue even 
now to influence many millions of the race. It had 
very active religious opponents for some time in the 
worshippers of the sun-god Mithra, partly by reason 
of the high morality associated with the Persian re- 
ligion. As in many other religions the followers of 
Mithra practiced the rite of baptism (by immersion) 
and used ceremonially consecrated bread, water and 
grape juice. While Christian conceptions were in con- 
trast to polytheistic religions, some of the nobler senti- 
ments that had been inculcated by the older religions 
and philosophies were adopted by Christianity. The 
Golden Rule and the doctrine of the brotherhood of 
man, for example, were anticipated by the Chinese. It 
was Lao Tzu, a Chinese teacher who declared : "To the 
good I would be good; to the not-good I would also 



106 RELIGION 

be good, in order to make them good. He who rules, 
ruins; he who holds by force, loses; if you would take, 
you must first give. He who is tolerant is just." 
* * * * 

Asia was the source of five of the foremost relig- 
ions of the world, as follows: The Hindoo religion 
(Brahmanism), Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism 
(Jewish), and Christianity. The writings comprised in 
what are termed sacred books or Bibles were nearly 
all the work of Asiatic priests and prophets. 

The Hindoo religion is one of the oldest, if not 
the oldest, in the extent of its influence in the world. 
Asiatic India is regarded as the cradle of the language, 
the religion and the literature of the world. There is 
much reason to believe that, thousands of years ago, 
there dwelt on the plains of Central Asia a number of 
tribes, having the same customs, the offspring of one 
mother race, and that one of the two great branches 
peopled a large part of Europe, including the Greeks, 
Celts, Britons, Germans, Scandanivians or Norsemen. 
From the other branch originated the Medes, Persians, 
Hindoo and other Asiatic races. There are those who 
favor the view that the Aryan was the parent race of 
the principal Asiatic and European peoples. The Hin- 
doo mythology with its numerous parts is divided into 
the Vedic and Brahmanic, the Vedic being the oldest. 
Knowledge of the Vedic deities is derived from the 
Rig-Veda, consisting of one thousand hymns and in- 
vocations to the gods, written by prophets and sages 
several thousand years before Christ. 

Christna is one of the Brahmanic Gods. All ac- 
counts agree respecting his divine paternity; that he 
was miraculously begotten, that his mother was a vir- 
gin, that he performed many miracles, had a band of 
disciples, that he taught excellent morals, and was put 
to death by his enemies. Some able students of an- 



RELIGION 107 

cient and modern religions contend with much good 
reasoning that Christna, in an evolutionary sense, is a 
link in the chain extending from the sun worshippers to 
the Christ of the Christians. They also trace close con- 
nection between the Hebrew deity and the sun and 
constellations of stars, and aver that it is much the same 
with the Christian deity and his son, the latter being 
often called the "Sun of Righteousness. ,, It is also a 
suggestive coincidence that the birth of Christna was 
placed at the time of year when the solar luminary be- 
gins to rise in the northern horizon after a .season of 
gradual setting lower in the heavens. The Christmas 
festivities of the Christians and the festivities of the 
ancient sun-worshippers came precisely at the same 
time of year. Buddha, whose worshippers now number 
between four and five hundred millions of people, or 
about one-fourth of the population of the earth, is 
claimed to have been begotten in a miraculous manner 
without a natural father. The legend, believed in by 
millions of his worshippers, is that his virgin mother 
conceived him from a ray of light and that his advent 
aroused extraordinary joy, even among the birds, that 
gardens suddenly bloomed with flowers, that musical 
instruments were played upon most skilfully, but not 
by human hands. His family name was Gautama, but 
as Buddha, "the enlightened one," he has been wor- 
shipped. The legend also relates many superhuman 
acts of Buddha, and his ethical code, given by his Siam- 
ese followers, is made up of ten commandments. The 
moral maxims of Buddha are voluminous and extol 
all manner of virtues and of good and kind deeds. 

The oldest Buddhist Bible — Tripitka — was com- 
piled 300 years before the time of Christ. Its basic 
teachings are self-conquest and universal charity. 
Menu was the law giver of the Hindoos in much the 
same sense as Moses is of the Jews, and the institutes 



108 RELIGION 

of Menu are in numerous respects strikingly similar to 
what is termed the Mosaic law. 

China is one of the countries of great antiquity. 
It is the claim of the Chinese that their traditions go 
back millions of years, but the claim is, of course, pre- 
posterous. It is strongly believed in parts of India that 
China was first peopled by immigrants from the Aryan 
country. On the soil of China are crowded five hun- 
dred millions of people. The sacred (canonical) books 
of China, or of Confucianism, are the Five Kinds, which 
include documents 4,000 years old, but mostly written 
or compiled about 500 B. C. The Chinese consider 
them sacred but, unlike other sacred books, not a reve- 
lation from God, since Confucius recognized no God. 
His was a religion of this world, summed up by him as 
follows : "The observance of three fundamental laws of 
relation between sovereign and subject, father and 
child, husband and wife, and the five capital virtues — 
universal charity, impartial justice, conformity to cere- 
monies and established usages, rectitude of heart and 
mind, and pure sincerity." Confucianism represents the 
wisdom and high moral teachings of Confucius, the 
great Chinese teacher and law-giver. Confucius is re- 
garded as the patron saint of China. His teachings and 
writings have influenced a greater number of people 
than any man who ever lived, possibly excepting 
Buddha. His teachings greatly increased private and 
public virtue and morality. His was one of the great 
master minds of the race, and he was excelled by none 
in the lofty character of his work. It was Confucius 
who, over 500 years before Christ, expressed one of 
his favorite precepts as follows: "Do not unto others 
what you would not have others do unto you." Slightly 
paraphrased this precept has been attributed to Christ, 
and is now regarded as the Golden Rule of Christen- 
dom. 



RELIGION 109 

The Egytian Osiris was the most popular di- 
vinity among the masses of Egypt. The Egyptian trin- 
ity was Osiris, Isis, and Horus — father, mother, and 
son. The explanation of the trinity and it's three 
characters is as follows: Osiris is water, especially 
the Nile ; Isis is the earth, especially the land of Egypt ; 
and Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis. The twenty- 
fifth of December was the festal day in honor of the 
birthday of Horus. 

Mithra was one of the most powerful gods of the 
Persians. He was the sun or the genius of the sun. 
His symbols were truth and justice. The Zend Avesta, 
comprising the sacred books of the Persians, is re- 
garded as one of the important Bibles of the world, 
though its religion has few adherents as compared 
with the many millions of Brahmans, Buddhists, and 
disciples of Confucianism. It was written and compiled 
by Zoroaster and his followers about 3,000 years ago 
and it is said that it included 12,000 parchments. The 
sacred books of Persia were believed to constitute a 
record of the words spoken by God himself, and much 
contained in the Zend Avesta was appropriated by Jews 
and Christians. 

The Koran is the sacred book of Mohammedans, 
who believe that divine revelations were given to 
Adam, Seth, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Mo- 
hammed — that each revelation in part superseded the 
preceding one. The Pentateuch, the Psalms, and the 
Four Gospels are accepted by them, but they claim that 
their value has been much impaired by the interpola- 
tions of Jews and Christians. 

The Torah (Book of the Law) now designated as 
the Pentateuch or five books, is believed by Jews and 
Christians to have been written by Moses under the 
direct dictation of God. The oldest Hebrew manu- 
scripts include the contents of all the books or parts 



110 RELIGION 

now contained in the Pentateuch, the books or parts 
having been subsequently divided into chapters and 
sections. 

The Christian Bible is made up of two collections 
— the Old Testament and the New Testament. The 
Old Testament includes the Torah, Nebiim, and Cath- 
erbim of the Jews. The New Testament is a com- 
pilation of early Christian writings, originally appear- 
ing in the various churches of Asia, Africa and Europe. 
The Bible is one of many books claimed to have been 
inspired of God. While Christians deny the divinity 
of other books, affirming that they were of human 
origin, they strenuously contend that their book is 
God's only revelation to mankind. The orthodox claim 
as to its divinity is expressed as follows by Birks : 

"Behind the human authors stood the Divine 
Spirit, controlling, guiding, and suggesting every part 
of their different messages.' , 

Early Christian influences controlled the making 
of the Scriptures. When the books of the New Testa- 
ment came to be recognized and accepted as canonical 
the terms "Old" and "New" Testament were adopted 
in distinguishing the two divisions. 

There are, in addition to the canonical books of the 
Bible, many Jewish and Christian books designated as 
the Apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments. 
The books accepted as canonical, and not apochryphal, 
by some Jews, and for most part accepted by Roman 
Catholics, but rejected by Protestants are: Baruch, 
Tobit, Judith, Book of Wisdom, Song of the Three Chil- 
dren, History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer 
of Manasseh, Ecclesiasticus, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, 1 Mac- 
cabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 5 Mac- 
cabees. Out of a list of about 250 so-termed apoch- 
ryphal books of Jewish and Christian writings (sacred) 
only sixty-six have been declared canonical and divine 



RELIGION 111 

by the Protestants. The two classes of books — canon- 
ical and apochryphal — are much the same in character. 
Remsburg says: "The worst canonical books are per- 
haps better than the worst apochryphal books; while, 
on the other hand, the best apochryphal, if not equal to 
the best canonical books, are far superior to a ma- 
jority of them. Circumstances rather than merit de- 
termined the fate of these books. Books of real merit 
and of high authority in the early churches were cast 
aside because the churches either ceased to exist or 
changed their creeds; while books of little merit sur- 
vived as authorities because their teachings supported 
the doctrines which survived. The Christianity of the 
second century was not the Christianity of the first. 
Books teaching the new theology superseded those 
which taught the old; and thus the earlier writings be- 
came obsolete. Of all the Christian books written 
prior to the middle century only a few epistles have 
been retained as authorities." 

The early history of doctrinal Christianity which 
claimed divine authority from sacred writings, subse- 
quently incorporated in part in the Bible, is the com- 
pilation of the conflicting conjectures and conflicting 
ambitions of men who sought to control the illiterate 
masses. The early church fathers engaged in frequent 
and lengthy argumetns with reference to the Trinity, 
original sin, the immaculate conception, and other doc- 
trines deeply regarded as essential tenets of Christian- 
ity. One of the foremost of the fathers was Origen 
(185-254 A. D.) ; but he lost prestige and recognition 
and suffered persecution. Origen virtually refused to 
accept the dogma of the Trinity. He believed only in 
a transcendent, immaterial and eternal God, and was 
therefore not in harmony with the Trinitarians. The 
great differences of opinion, then as now, regarding 
the teachings ascribed to Christ were notorious. The 



112 RELIGION 

various opinions of the fathers regarding the Trinity 
and other Christian doctrines, or dogmas, were in- 
volved in mysticism and incoherencies. However, the 
Trinitarian doctrine came to be adopted, temporarily 
at least, to the satisfaction of a majority of the fathers 
of the church in A. D. 325, when there met at Nicea 
perhaps the most famous of all Christian councils. 
Constantine, who in 306 ascended the throne as the 
head of the Roman Empire, convoked the great council. 
He had sagaciously recognized the necessity of bringing 
together discordant elements in support of Christianity 
as the state religion. The settlement of so important 
a doctrine as that of the Trinity became, in the astute 
mind of Constantine, a governmental necessity. There 
were present at the council Vendic Christians (Pagan 
philosophers enraged because of the recent overthrow 
of Paganism) anxious for argument with the Chris- 
tians. The sessions of the council were numerous and 
protracted, and there was much acrimonous discussion. 
Constantine was powerfully instrumental in establish- 
ing the doctrine of the Trinity, using what would now 
be regarded as shrewd, if not unscrupulous, political 
tactics to influence a majority of those who participated 
in the proceedings of the Nicea council. The Trinitarian 
doctrine combines God the Father, the Son Jesus, and 
the Holy Ghost — three in one Godhead. But the Coun- 
cil's solution of the problem involved conjectures not 
acceptable to the Arians, and others, though it largely 
dominated Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, who 
exerted much power in support of the Trinity and other 
doctrines which have ever since constituted the creed 
of all orthodox Christians. It was Augustine who 
strenuously emphasized and securely fastened upon 
orthodox Christendom the doctrine of "Original Sin" 
— that man is by Nature in a fallen, sinful, wretched 
condition, in consequence of which he can do nothing 



RELIGION 113 

for himself, not even make a beginning in the living of 
a decent life, and that his only way of escape from the 
eternal fires of hell is salvation through Christ. The 
conception of the "eternal fires of hell," derived from a 
Persian source, well served Augustine's worldly and 
"spiritual" purposes. 

The New Testament did not exist at the time of 
the Apostles nor was it in existence in the middle of the 
second century. 

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 

The chief credit of founding the Roman Catholic 
Church evidently belongs to Irenseus; likewise the 
credit of founding the New Testament canon, a selec- 
tion or collection of sacred writings. It is authoritatively 
stated that no collection of books corresponding to the 
existing New Testament was known prior to Irenseus. 
Dr. Davidson, a Biblical scholar, says : "The conception 
of canonicity and inspiration attaching to New Testa- 
ment books did not exist until the time of Irenseus." It 
appears that prior to that time so-termed sacred writ- 
ings were not regarded as inspired. Toward the end of 
the second century the Christians represented about a 
hundred different sects. It was Irenseus who conceived 
the comprehensive plan of combining as many as pos- 
sible of these sects into a great unified Catholic Church 
with Rome at its head; since Rome at that time was 
numerically and influentially the most prominent of all 
the Christian churches. "It is a matter of necessity," 
says Irenseus, "that every church should agree with 
this church on account of its preeminent authority." 
("Heresies" Book 3). Irenseus made a special collec- 
tion of books for use in the church. These books num- 
bered twenty and began with Matthew and ended with 
Revelation. In the third century Tertullian and Clem- 
ent of Alexandria succeeded Irenseus and adopted the 



114 RELIGION 

list of books collected by him. The four gospels, con- 
taining four different biographies of Jesus, were bound 
together because, as Irenaeus put it, "there are four 
quarters of the earth in which we live, and four uni- 
versal winds." The books of the Bible adopted by the 
fathers referred to were selected from a great number 
of Christian writings — representing diversified tradi- 
tions, conjectures and myths and partaking of the vary- 
ing individual idiosyncracies of the writers themselves. 
The selections were made from forty or more gospels, 
many Acts of the Apostles, twenty Revelations and a 
hundred epistles. The work so auspiciously begun by 
Irenaeus finally resulted in uniting the three divisions of 
Christendom and in establishing the Catholic Church, 
which remained a great religious unit for centuries. 
But, says John E. Remsburg, a noted authority of Bib- 
lical history: "The seams gave way, the divisions sep- 
arated and to-day stand out distinctly as they did in the 
second century; the Roman Catholic Church represent- 
ing the Petrine, the Greek Church the Johannine, and 
the Protestant Churches to a great extent the Pauline 
Christians of that early stage. But while the early 
church separated each retained all of the sixty-six 
canonical books, save Revelation, which for a time was 
rejected by the Greek Church." 

The comprehensive and sweeping claims of the 
Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church, as obtained 
from an authentic Catholic source are, in condensed 
statement, as follows: 

1. That Jesus Christ appeared on earth to "uplift, 
enlighten, and save mankind." 

2. That "He returned whence He came," and that 
"instruction and guidance of mankind in the way of 
eternal life" was bequeathed or transmitted in per- 
petuity to the hierarchal church "which He made the 
depository of His teachings and which he empowered 



RELIGION 115 

to instruct and govern, and act in his name." 

3. "Before He ascended into heaven Christ was 
pleased to appoint a head over His Society and to be 
vicariously represented on earth in the person of the 
Sovereign Pontiff or Pope in whom the Church recog- 
nizes the most exalted degree of dignity, the full ampli- 
tude of jurisdiction, and power based on no human con- 
stitution however venerable, but emanating from the 
Saviour himself." 

4. "As the true and legitimate Vicar of Jesus 
Christ, the Pope presides over the Universal (Catholic) 
Church. 

5. The Pope "is the Father and Governor in mat- 
ters spiritual of all the Faithful, of Bishops and of all 
prelates, be their station, rank or power what they 
may." 

6. The Supreme Pontiff "holds the keys. He 
makes the decrees to be obeyed on earth and ratified 
in Heaven. * * * He feeds with sound doctrine the 
lambs and sheep of the Church of God over which he 
rules." 

7. The Pope is the "mouth of the Church. 
Through him speaks the mystic body of Christ. When 
acting as the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, 
he proclaims the world doctrine or decision on faith or 
morals, he is infallible." 

It must be readily granted that the claims of 
Roman Catholicism are stated with consummate clear- 
ness and positiveness. They appear as irrevocable and 
final claims and not to be for an instant questioned or 
doubted, at least by the "faithful." Moreover they do 
not appear to be susceptible of curtailment or of 
argument. They are vital to the present and future 
existence of the Roman Catholic Church. They are 
based upon the story of Jesus Christ — his marvelous 
birth, the teachings reputed to him by his apostles and 



116 RELIGION 

disciples, his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension into 
heaven. It is of particular interest to note that the 
Pope is the ultimate, compelling authority respecting" 
all Catholic doctrines, whether derived from Biblical 
or other sources. There is no room for conjectures and 
notions emanating from the sheep of his religious flock, 
or from any Catholic under the authority of the Pope, 
because in "spiritual" matters he is infallible. Respect- 
ing the claim of infallibility, it is contended by Catho- 
lics that Protestants frequently misrepresent Catholi- 
cism by attaching to infallibility gratuitous and false 
interpretations. Be this as it may, a reasonably clear 
line of demarcation must be drawn between "spiritual" 
power and temporal power to qualify those outside of 
both the Catholic and Protestant religious kingdoms to 
determine sundry issues existing between Catholicism 
and Protestantism. However, it is quite clear to those 
who are informed respecting the history of the Papacy 
of the Catholic Church during the centuries of the past, 
that the Popes have exerted a tremendous temporal 
power; have made and unmade kings and rulers of 
mankind; have utilized temporal power in ways polit- 
ical through the crafty and diplomatic application of 
the "infallible" and the "spiritual" to the very material 
advantage of the Church. In every instance where the 
Pope directed the affairs of State the "spiritual" and 
the temporal distinctly revolved about the Church as a 
common centre of material benefits. The same ob- 
servation applies to Protestantism whenever it had in 
the past an opportunity to make use of temporal or 
worldly power to strengthen materially its hold upon 
portions of the human race. Both Catholicism and 
Protestantism have never hesitated to increase their 
worldly influence and material gains by placing especial 
stress upon what is termed their "spiritual" power. 
Both continue to pose as righteous dictators in purely 



RELIGION 117 

earthly matters — affairs of government included. 

It must be admitted that as a religious unit, repre- 
senting great organizing and rapidly developing power, 
the Roman Catholic Church is the oldest church 
in Christendom. It is in possession of evidence to 
support its claim that it was the first Christian church, 
at least in point of permanent organization. In the 
course of centuries it came to be the most powerful of 
all religious bodies because of having its authoritative 
power absolutely vested in its Papal head — the Su- 
preme Pontiff at Rome; because of the intellectual acu- 
men and religious scholarship of its cardinals, bishops, 
and prelates, all vigilant and worldly wise in adopt- 
ing both material and "spiritual" means; and because, 
primarily and continuously, it has had many centuries 
of earthly experience in its exploitations in the domain 
of emotional credulity. 

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH 

Under this head the Protestant Church of the Uni- 
ted States will be considered as composed of about fifty 
separate denominations and about one hundred and 
twenty sub-divisions or branches of some of the larger 
denominations. The more prominent denominations, 
each having over a million communicant members, are : 
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and Lutheran. The 
term Protestant, as applied to all the various denomina- 
tions referred to, originated in the sixteenth century, 
during which time those who protested against the 
Roman Catholic church, and quarreled among them- 
selves, established denominations to suit the religious 
beliefs and notions of their respective leaders. 

Martin Luther was the central, compelling figure of 
the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and he has 
been very widely regarded as the founder of Prot- 
estantism. He is considered high authority on the 



118 RELIGION 

Bible; he devoted much of his time to its study and his 
translation of it is one of the classics of German liter- 
ature. Luther's master stroke in his war upon the 
Pope and minor lights of the Catholic Church was his 
forceful contention that the Bible and not the Pope rep- 
resented divine authority. This contention directly 
denied the "spiritual infallibility" of the Supreme Pon- 
tiff of the Catholic Church and vested the authority, 
claimed to be possessed by the Pope, in the Bible. It 
is of much suggestive significance that Luther rejected 
no less than six of the books of the Protestant 
Bible. In his "Bondage of the Will" he strenuously 
criticises the book of Esther, and says : "I am such an 
enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not 
exist." He rejected the book of Jonah by declaring the 
history of Jonah to be "so monstrous as to be abso- 
lutely incredible." In course of his writings he rejected 
the Epistle to the Hebrews as not having emanated 
from St. Paul, or any apostle. He rejected the Epistle 
of Jude" as "having no place in the Scriptures." Of 
Revelation he wrote : "I can discover no trace that it is 
established by the Holy Spirit." 

Inasmuch as Martin Luther is one of the very 
prominent figures in the history of religions it is quite 
in order to refer briefly, at least, to some of his pre- 
dominating traits of character. He was a man of pow- 
erful physique and intellect and indomitable courage. 
In him were developed to a very marked degree 
what are termed by Christians and others "the lower 
animal passions." He was frequently under the control 
of these passions and innate weaknesses. There 
were two Luthers — Luther, the scholar and theologian, 
the arch enemy of the Pope, the Luther of all Protes- 
tant literautre extant respecting his intense religious 
activities, and the Luther of violent passions, of moral 
obliquity, and with a very marked disposition to con- 



RELIGION 119 

demn in others many of the bigoted and destructive 
actions of which he himself was guilty. While he de- 
throned the Pope and enthroned the Bible, and rightly 
sought to bring it forth from the seclusion in which it 
was held by Papal power, that he might afford mankind 
the privilege and opportunity to read, study, and inter- 
pret the Bible, as the only divine and spiritual author- 
ity, those who took issue with his interpretations of 
Bible passages provoked his most bitter, vitriolic and 
denunciatory condemnations. The history of Luther's 
tempestuous life contains abundant evidence of his 
ruling disposition to maintain uncompromisingly as 
finally conclusive his dogmatic or doctrinal deliver- 
ances. 

This attitude of Luther naturally aroused the 
opposition of other students of the Bible which his 
undaunted courage and scholarship had made access- 
ible to them. It was the various and conflicting 
individual interpretations of the Bible during the 
sixteenth century that brought into existence a 
number of Protestant sects, some of the leaders of 
which were prompt in adopting Luther's attitude 
toward dissenters and heretics — those who refused 
to accept this, that or the other belief or conjec- 
ture. Strickland in "Queen of England," says: "It is 
a lamentable trait in human nature that there was not 
a sect established at the Reformation that did not avow 
as a part of their religious duty the horrible necessity 
of destroying some of their fellow creatures on account 
of what they termed heretical tenets." It is unques- 
tionably true that Luther, Calvin, and their followers 
carried with them into the Protestant churches the very 
spirit of intolerance and persecution which had driven 
them from the Church of Rome. Macauley says the 
Reformers "dissented from Catholicism but would 
suffer none to dissent from themselves;" they "de- 



120 RELIGION 

manded freedom of conscience and refused to grant it;" 
they "execrated persecution, yet persecuted;" they 
"urged reason against the authority of one opponent, 
and authority against the reason of another." 

From the standpoint of rational observation and 
reflection it appears conclusively true that, whatever 
may be urged against Luther and other lesser leaders 
of the Reformation of the sixteen century; whatever of 
evidence and factual consequence may be brought 
against the character of the cruel fanaticism of those 
who condemned Catholicism and persecuted Catholics 
in like manner as the Catholics persecuted them, and 
who persecuted each other with equal ferocity, 
the transference by Reformers of "divine author- 
ity" from the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church 
to the Bible, marked the beginning of a vitally import- 
ant and significantly progressive epoch in the history 
of humanity — in the evolutionary advancement of the 
race. Why? Because the Reformers, though notor- 
iously inconsistent, substituted their own conjectures 
for the assumptive claims of Catholicism respecting 
absolute "divine authority," and centered that authority 
in the Bible; and because they contended for the right 
of all men to individually interpret the Bible. Alto- 
gether aside from their claims respecting the divine in- 
spiration of the Bible, the Reformers (no doubt unwit- 
tingly) forced the wedge that established a line of cleav- 
age between the bondage and the freedom of individual 
belief and thought. With religious or "divine author- 
ity" altogether vested in one person or head, the be- 
liefs of individuals accepting that authority could exert 
no potent influence in opposition to it. On the other 
hand, the right of individuals to regard "divine author- 
ity" from divergent points of view and interpret it in 
accordance with their findings must ultimately reveal 
through free discussion whatever of weakness and of 



RELIGION 121 

error are inherent in this supposed and variously inter- 
preted authority. Once a subject, however worldly or 
"spiritual," is open to all men for thorough discussion, 
the error or truth associated with it will in time be- 
come apparent. Error invariably shrinks from any in- 
vestigation and discussion likely to expose it as error. 
The founders of the Roman Catholic Church very 
shrewdly anticipated the necessity of centralizing all 
divine authority in one head, and of making the author- 
ity of the "Supreme Pontiff" final and irrevocable. The 
momentous and far reaching importance of the period 
of the Reformation cannot be successfully disputed. 
While some of the Reformers and many of their fol- 
lowers were extremely bigoted, fanatical, and cruel, and 
like most Reformers of all centuries, grossly and some- 
times grotesquely inconsistent, they builded "better 
than they knew." Additional attention will be given 
to Catholicism and Protestantism in the essay on "The 
Future of the Church." 




WHY BELIEF? 

What is belief? The term is frequently used syn- 
onymously with faith, both implying similar states of 
brain matter. Both are to a greater or less degree 
associated either with statements entirely devoid of 
facts, or with statements partly based upon knowledge. 
In so far as a belief, of whatever character, happens to 
be sustained by rational evidence, just so far is it en- 
titled to credence. Many beliefs current have some 
foundation in fact because they concern matters rele- 
vant to contemporaneous events and incidents of human 
existence of an altogether earthly character. Pure 
belief unrelated to the knowledge of mankind, derived 
from known, actual, and natural relationships existing 
between man and man, or between two or more objects, 
is totally unreliable. Therefore, when pure belief is 
made to appear in the guise of truth, or in the guise of 
a "sincere conviction," arising from irrational emotions, 
it may appear relatively harmless, and yet prove very 
harmful and destructive in its influence. No harm need 
come from cherishing pleasant and comforting beliefs, 
or hallucinations, as long as they are not entertained 
and falsely promulgated as actual verities. Pure be- 
lief finds its root in emotions, feelings. It is quite na- 
tural for men and women and children to believe in 
what they feel ought to be or should be, entirely re- 
gardless of rational evidence. It is much easier just to 
believe than look for, find, and utilize testimony in 
support of belief. However, the line of demarcation be- 

122 



WHY BELIEF? 123 

tween pure belief and knowledge verified becomes per- 
fectly clear upon close observation and analysis. Non- 
appreciation of the difference existing between the con- 
ditions or states of faith and knowledge susceptible of 
at least approximately valid proof, is the cause of an in- 
calculable amount of incoherent and unreliable think- 
ing. It is therefore not surprising that at the present 
stage of evolutionary progress the multifarious cogita- 
tions of the human race are in considerble part made 
up of a vast medley of illusions mingled with the ordin- 
ary experiences and facts of human existence. The 
social fabric evidences the beliefs, faiths, habits and cus- 
toms, prevalent and popular at any given time, while 
pure belief is only that, and nothing more. It is not re- 
lated to dependable knowledge and therefore not to be 
accepted as factual evidence. 

It is contended by metaphysical thinkers of theo- 
logical schools and by others — adepts at reasoning 
from unestablished premises to logically unestablished 
conclusions — that mere emotional feelings and mere in- 
tellectual concepts, regardless of evidential support 
aside from such feelings and conceptions, are verities, 
and therefore to be accepted as guides in determining 
the validity and reliability of intellectual concepts as- 
sociated therewith. These metaphysicians provide al- 
luring and comfortable lodging places for about all the 
illusions and vagaries of the human brain. They revel 
in conglomerate conjectures and mystifying mysticisms 
but usually clothe their metaphysical conclusions in 
scholarly language, thus deeply impressing those at- 
tracted and influenced by their deliverances. If mere 
beliefs and intellectual concepts should be generally 
accepted as evidential facts there would be no need for 
verified knowledge. Human affairs in all their com- 
plexity would be involved in one great incoherent mass 
of emotional and intellectual absurdities. Just what 



124 WHY BELIEF? 

would become of our race were the actual and sub- 
stantial affairs of human existence directed by clever 
metaphysical conjurers and word artists, involves a 
problem not easily solved. Those who can picture hu- 
manity tossed about by emotional feelings and irra- 
tional conjectures are invited to find a satisfactory 
solution for the problem. Metaphysicians are not ex- 
cluded from the invitation. 

Belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God — 
from Genesis to Revelation — and belief in all the dog- 
mas and doctrines of Christendom derived or claimed 
to be derived from the Bible, is aroused and sustained 
in human brains by the aid of hope and fear, and 
through the emotions and feelings involved in various 
social influences, such as music and art. Belief in or- 
thodox Christianity exists for the same reason, essen- 
tially, that applies to any religion theologically related 
to supernaturalism. Religious beliefs are passed on like 
other beliefs, from one generation to another. Emo- 
tional religious beliefs are perpetuated, in whole or in 
part, by the methodical systematization of various 
earthly instrumentalities (too well known to be enum- 
erated) by which believers are instructed, trained and 
bound together in religious and social bodies, large and 
small. A Catholic is a Catholic in belief for the same 
reason that a Protestant is a Protestant in belief. Both 
have been indoctrinated, habituated; — the one is a Cath- 
oilc and the other a Protestant and each believes in just 
what he has been trained to believe. If both had been 
reared as Mohammedans, both would be Mohammed- 
ans and both would persecute, without much prov- 
ocation, Catholics and Protestants. Training in theo- 
logical doctrines does not comprehend the use of sci- 
ence primers. Believers are solemnly warned against 
even the consideration, much less the acceptance, of 
any statements not in harmony with the teachings of 



WHY BELIEF? 125 

their respective centres of theological training. Their 
preparatory theological instruction comprehends secu- 
lar or rational information only in so far as such in- 
formation is not likely to arouse heretical thoughts. 
They are drilled in scholastic metaphysics, not related 
to the physical facts of human existence. Any state- 
ment, not in accord with their theological attitude, jars 
them. Therefore, their unwillingness to have their the- 
ology put to the test of any analysis not in harmony 
with theological metaphysics and mystery. Their theo- 
logical habits are fixed; their paths are well beaten. A 
large majority of the communicant members of all the 
religious denominations of Christendom have neither 
the time nor the inclination, on account of the fixity 
of habit, to investigate the creeds they profess to be- 
lieve. How many of them have critically read their 
Bibles or are accustomed frequently to read the Bible, 
is altogether problematical. They are content with 
what they have been taught to believe ; they are agree- 
ably and helpfully influenced by the naturally social in- 
fluences incident to the observance of the theological 
requirements of the churches of which they are 
members. It is therefore quite natural that they 
should resist any statement deemed by them antagon- 
istic to their beliefs, or any influence which they might 
regard as interfering with their religious comfort. 
They are satisfied with what they have been taught to 
believe, biblically and theologically, and they feel sure 
that what they believe must be true. Moreover, their 
pastors and priests frequently insist that they must re- 
main steadfast in the faith to ensure salvation hereafter. 
They find satisfaction in listening to their pastor, in 
participating in the various ceremonies and sacraments, 
and in the enjoyment of music. Should doubts occa- 
sionally disturb them they fall back upon what they 
have been told many times to believe, and what they 



126 WHY BELIEF? 

wish to believe, so they steadfastly adhere to the same 
ancient doctrines and stories. If, under the influence 
of theological suggestion and domination, they con- 
demn or seek to ostracize and injure the character 
of those who do not accept their beliefs, the injustice of 
which they thus become guilty is reflected much more 
upon their theological instructors than upon them- 
selves. 

Religious belief is by no means a guarantee of a 
relatively high standard of ethics or morality. Those 
who maintain and cling to the doctrines of orthodox 
Christianity quite clearly reveal in their daily lives 
their natural inclination to perform both good and evil 
deeds just as all others of the human race do, re- 
gardless of religious belief or unbelief. Their moral 
excellence, or the reverse, is invariably determined by 
the influences of heredity, plus or minus the effects of 
natural moral enlightenment, or the debasement of 
natural morality as affecting each, individually. Those 
of moral strength in the church are no better than 
those of moral strength beyond the pale of religious 
denominations. Those who are morally weak in the 
church reveal the same weakness in a moral sense as 
those without the church. Natural morality always 
and everywhere implies the effectual and practical 
recognition of the natural relations existing between 
two or more individuals. When these relations and ob- 
ligations are much obscured by imperfect discernment 
and false reasoning, due chiefly to insufficient educa- 
tion and training of the right description, moral lapses 
inevitably follow. This observation must become 
clearly apparent to all who will give adequate consid- 
eration to verified data. Therefore, to designate a be- 
liever in Christian dogmas a good moral person, simply 
because of his or her belief, would be a very reckless 
procedure. To designate a non-believer in Christian 



WHY BELIEF? 127 

dogmas as not a good moral person, because of his 
or her unbelief in such dogmas, would likewise be a 
reckless and unjust proceeding. It has been frequently 
noted that a majority of church members are much 
better and far more humane in character than some of 
the creeds which they profess to believe. 

There is much room for the exercise of more 
charity and justice among all believers and unbelievers. 
The latter are prone to expect more than they should 
from believers and believers are prone to condemn un- 
believers because they refuse to subscribe to Christian 
doctrines as formulated by theologians. Unbelievers, 
to be just and charitable, should consider that if their 
brains had been influenced just as the brains of the 
believers had been influenced, they, too, would 
be believers. On the other hand, believers should be 
actuated by sufficient charity and justice to ascertain 
why, in an evidential sense, unbelievers refuse to accept 
their faiths or beliefs, before indulging in denuncia- 
tory comment. To refuse thus to enlighten themselves 
is simply a confession of the weakness of their position. 
Nevertheless it does not become those who have out- 
grown some or all of their doctrinal beliefs, to which 
they adhered in their younger days, to regard unjustly 
those who, by force of habit and because of fear, con- 
tinue to believe as they do. Why then increase 
injustice, rather than decrease it? Why should not 
all sane-minded persons unite in helping one another 
to perform the real, obligatory duties of the earthly 
life that now is, and thus contribute to the welfare of 
the present generation and of generations to come. 
After all, it is the acts and deeds related purely to 
earthly human conditions and affairs here and now 
which make for the weal or woe of humanity. 

Purely earthly affairs are quite sufficient to engage 
all the serious thought and effort of mankind. 



WHY UNBELIEF? 

In this essay the terms "unbelief" and "unbelievers'* 
are emlpoyed as opposites in meaning to "belief" and 
"believers," with especial reference to various parts of 
the Bible, respecting the doctrines and creeds of ortho- 
dox Christianity as based upon the Bible and the the- 
ology of supernaturalism. 

It is the confirmed habit of many believers to re- 
gard with distrust and disdain those who give expres- 
sion to unbelief. In fact the terms "unbelief" and "un- 
believers" are frequently too mild to express with suffi- 
cient emphasis the feelings of believers toward unbe- 
lievers. The terms "infidels," "scoffers" and "atheists" 
are frequently used, in an opprobrious sense, in making 
various references to those who refuse to accept their 
beliefs. 

"Belief" and "unbelief" express different states of 
brain matter; the resulting effects of these states stand 
in opposition to each other. To illustrate: A believer 
avers his belief in "original sin," because a serpent 
tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam to eat of the 
"forbidden fruit," as recorded in Genesis. The un- 
believer dissents. He refuses to accept the story as 
a true narrative, because he is unable to discover any 
evidence that the Garden of Eden account in Genesis 
is more than a myth, without a vestige of probabil- 
ity associated with it. This illustration fairly well 
serves to indicate the difference between the believer 
and unbeliever. It is to be assumd that both are honest 

128 



WHY UNBELIEF? 129 

in their belief and unbelief and that both are, or should 
be, in good standing as members of society, provided 
their worldly behavior entitles them to the confidence 
and esteem of their fellowmen. Both frequently find 
themselves quite in harmony with respect to everyday 
earthly affairs. They breathe the same atmosphere, eat 
the same food, know the value of a dollar and how to 
earn it, and both are equally prompt, when suffering 
bodily ills, in seeking the services of a physician; since 
they both love life and desire to remain alive as long 
as possible. Both are subject to earthly woes and 
sufferings. Should it happen that they belong to the 
same political party they would find no difficulty in 
uniting in their belief that those of an opposite political 
faith are on the wrong side — politically. Note reader, 
how well the believer and unbeliever are "yoked to- 
gether" respecting purely earthly affairs and all mat- 
ters essential to their very existence, of which both 
possess some very definite knowledge. But it is im- 
possible to yoke them together in a belief in super- 
natural agencies. The one believes in Bible accounts 
of miraculous occurrences, the other does not and can- 
not so believe. The one accepts as true that which is 
entirely repudiated by the other. The issue raised be- 
tween the believer and the unbeliever centers in the 
very important matter of evidence — not the visionary 
and unreliable evidence of feeling or of mere believing, 
but evidence supported by known facts relating to hu- 
man existence. 

Mere belief is not evidence. Mere unbelief is not 
evidence. The one is bare affirmation ; the other is bare 
negation. 

In recognition of the very great importance to the 
well-being of humanity of facts and truths well sustain- 
ed by verified knowledge, it is obviously the duty of 
unbelievers to ascertain why believers repose their faith 



130 WHY UNBELIEF? 

in supernatural agencies — in a power transcending Na- 
ture — in a power respecting which they have no 
knowledge. In fairness it is also the very serious duty 
of believers diligently to enlighten themselves and 
learn why unbelievers refuse to share their beliefs, es- 
pecially if condemnation is considered a fit penalty for 
unbelief. Penalties imposed through ignorance of evi- 
dence are not prompted by just, humane and charit- 
able motives. Therefore, it should appear necessary 
to all believers to obtain some definite information as 
to why so many of their fellow mortals will not believe 
as they believe. For the purpose of presenting such 
information to all who desire to avail themselves of it 
this essay has been prepared. The Bible as a whole, 
the Old Testament, the New Testament and a number 
of the theological doctrines derived or claimed to be de- 
rived from the Bible, will be considered in the order 
stated — from the standpoint of unbelief. 

THE BIBLE 

Unbelievers affirm : 

That the Bible, in all its parts, is the product of 
human brains. 

That it contains no evidence whatsoever of having 
been inspired by any power or influence extraneous to 
the processes of Nature. 

That it is a collection of selections made from a 
very large number of antecedent and so-called "sacred 
writings," derived from various sources and represent- 
ing current and popular beliefs in gods and devils as 
they existed in human minds when the writings were 
made. 

That many more of the sacred writings referred to 
were rejected than selected, and that the selections 
made were determined by the predilections and notions 
of the persons who formulated and arranged, to suit 



WHY UNBELIEF? 131 

themselves, the books or part of the Bible as it now 
exists. 

That the Bible was humanly inspired, that the con- 
ceptions of the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the 
God of the New Testament are altogether human con- 
ceptions, expressive of no power other than that natur- 
ally vested in human brain matter and indicative of 
the same power exhibited by all the sacred writings 
or books of Brahma, Ormuzd, Baal, Asshu, Osiris, Zeps, 
Jupiter, Alii, and other gods. 

That the Bible contains an epitome of the experi- 
ences and doings of humanity some thousands of years 
ago and reflects the goodness, wisdom, and the wicked- 
ness of mankind when its different parts were written, 
no matter when or by whom. 

That if the Bible were read as any other book — 
not for what it is claimed to be and is not — but for 
the information to be derived from it, for the human 
goodness it reveals, for the many beautiful and helpful 
thoughts it contains, for its poetic imagery in prose, and 
for the scholarship revealed in its language structure, 
a far greater and more lasting service would result to 
mankind. To bolster up false claims respecting it, 
while it is permitted to lie as a mere collector of dust 
on the centre tables and in out-of-the-way places in 
thousands of homes, diminishes its real value. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT 

When men began to create anthropomorphic gods 
they also began to create devils with human forms, the 
devils personifying what were deemed the powers of 
evil, as opposed to the gods in their personification of 
the powers of life-giving and goodness. 

Unbelievers affirm: 

That the Jehovah or God of the Old Testament had 
no more to do with the creation of the earth than any 



132 WHY UNBELIEF? 

other of the gods older than Jehovah, and that the 
earth existed many, many millions of years before any 
of the gods were dreamed of. 

That the story of the creation in Genesis is a pure 
myth and reflects the entire ignorance of the writers of 
the mythical narrative, respecting the present day 
knowledge of the cosmogony, geology, and biology of 
science. 

That Jehovah, like many other gods, was orig- 
inally a nature-god. 

That Jehovah records are not as ancient as those of 
other gods and much less ancient than has been rep- 
resented. Elohim and Adonair were gods before 
Jehovah. 

That Jehovah is anthropomorphic (human in 
form and attributes) as are other gods, parts of his body 
being spoken of in various places in the Bible as 
though he had a body in the form of man. His mind 
was vascillating, and at times was regretful of what 
it had done. 

That Jehovah is credited with the creation of Satan 
or the Devil, and that he either permitted or could not 
restrain the serpent or Satan from tempting Eve. 

That Jehovah's temper (human-like) was fre- 
quently most irascible. Through his angry decrees 
there resulted a greater destruction of life than was 
caused by any other god created in the brain of man. 

That Jehovah is portrayed in the Bible as a God 
of war and vengeance ; that he betrayed his armies into 
the hands of the enemy. 

That Jehovah approved and commanded great 
acts of dishonesty and immorality and sustained the 
worst forms of human slavery. He "inspired" or at 
least sanctioned the writing of more that is immodest, 
indecent, and obscene, than any other god. 

That the first five and the most important books 



WHY UNBELIEF? 133 

of the Bible — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and 
Deuteronomy — collectively called the Pentateuch, were 
not written by Moses, as orthodox Christians affirm. 

That Dr. Adam Clarke, a famous orthodox Chris- 
tian authority, is quite in error in his statement that 
"this sacred code Moses delivered complete to the He- 
brews some time before his death." 

That the book of Deuteronomy was not written in 
the time of Moses, but in the time of Josiah, eight cen- 
turies later. Dr. Briggs, one of the ablest, most im- 
partial, and most learned of modern Biblical critics, pre- 
sents many facts not susceptible to refutation to show 
that the composition of Deuteronomy harmonizes with 
the time of Josiah, including the development of He- 
brew oratory which did not exist eight centuries 
earlier. 

That there is no proof that Moses ever claimed au- 
thorship of the Pentateuch and that there is nothing in, 
or outside of, the work to show that he was its author. 
Renan, a high Bible authority says: "The opinion 
which attributes the composition of the Pentateuch to 
Moses seems quite modern. It is very certain that the 
ancient Hebrews never dreamed of regarding their leg- 
islator as their historian. The ancient documents ap- 
peared to them absolutely impersonal, and they at- 
tached to them no author's name." — (History of Se- 
mitic Languages, Book II, chapter I). 

That the Pentateuch was written in the Hebrew 
language, and that the Hebrew of the Bible did not 
exist in the time of Moses, and that centuries were re- 
quired in its development. 

That there is not only abundant evidence to prove 
that the Hebrew language did not exist at the time of 
Moses, but also to prove that the Pentateuch was not 
written until 800 years after the death of Moses. 

That the Pentateuch was written by various au- 



134 WHY UNBELIEF? 

thors from traditions derived from various sources. 

That the authorship of Joshua, First and Second 
Samuel, First and Second Kings, Isaiah and of the other 
books of the Old Testament has been seriously and 
successfully disputed. 

That the book of Job reveals Job not as an author 
but as the leading character of the book; that its author- 
ship is unknown. The Talmud asserts that Job was 
not a real personage, that the book is an allegory. 
Luther says: "It is merely the argument of a fable." 

That the claims respecting the authorship of the 
books of the Old Testament have been in large part 
shown to be false; that therefore their authority, as a 
whole, is invalid. They represent the work of many 
minds employed in transcribing traditions passed on to 
them from previous centuries. These writers were no 
more inspired than were other clever writers of ancient 
times, and no more inspired than writers of modern 
times. 

That if all the claims as to the authorship of the 
books of the Bible were uniformly sustained by conclu- 
sive evidence the contents of the books would afford 
no proof whatever of supernatural inspiration, or of the 
inherent validity of the theological doctrines based 
upon them. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Unbelievers affirm : 

That the books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
the four gospels declared by eminent orthodox Biblical 
scholars to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John, in the first century, were unknown to the 
early Christian Fathers ; that, therefore, their "genuine- 
ness" and credibility are substantially disputed. 

That Justin Martin, one of the most noted of the 
Christian Fathers who lived and wrote rather volum- 



WHY UNBELIEF? 135 

inously, about the middle of the second century, to 
prove the divinity of Christ, made no use of and never 
mentioned Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His writ- 
ings include about three hundred quotations from 
Christian writings, but none from the Four Gospels, 
though some of the documents of which they are com- 
posed, including the traditional sayings of Jesus, were 
frequently cited by the Fathers. 

That no mention of the Four Gospels is found in 
the writings still extant of thirty Christian authors who 
wrote prior to 170 A. D. 

That conclusive evidence shows that the Four 
Gospels were composed between 170 and 200 A. D., 
and that they were not written by Matthew, Mark, 
Luke and John. 

That, according to Bishop Faustus, a theologian 
with a disposition to weigh evidence and think for 
himself, the Four Gospels "were not written by the Son 
himself nor by his Apostles, but long afterward by some 
unknown men who, lest they should be suspected of 
writing things they knew nothing of, gave their books 
the names of the Apostles. 5 ' The Encyclopedia Brit- 
tanica, it may be noted, admits that Protestant scholar- 
ship in Europe has virtually given up the popular 
orthodox claim with regard to the origin of the Four 
Gospels. It says: "It is certain that the Synoptic 
Gospels took their present form only by degrees, and 
that while they had their root in the apostolic age they 
were fashioned by later influences and adapted to spec- 
ial wants in the early church. They are the deposits, in 
short, of Christian traditions handed down in oral form, 
before being committed to writing in such form as we 
have them; and this is now an accepted conclusion of 
every historical school of theologians in England no 
less than in Germany, conservative no less than rad- 
ical." 



136 WHY UNBELIEF? 

That the unreliability of oral traditions as being 
evidential of facts should appear very obvious to any 
person accustomed to weighing evidence; that tradi- 
tions handed down by word of mouth from one gener- 
ation to another are not entitled to credence unless 
they carry with them strong elements of probability; 
that traditional miracles, in contradiction of all that is 
known of natural processes, ought not to be regarded 
as other than the imaginary creations of untutored 
minds. 

That the authorship of other portions of the New 
Testament has been successfully disputed, that the au- 
thenticity of the books of the New Testament is not 
much better attested than that of the Old. It may fur- 
ther be added that John E. Remsburg, in his able and 
painstaking investigations respecting the "Authenticity 
of the Bible," finds that "of the sixty-six books of the 
Bible at least fifty are anonymous or forgeries. To 
teach that these books are divine, and to accept them 
as such, denotes a degree of depravity on one hand, or 
an amount of credulity on the other, that are not cred- 
itable to a moral and enlightened people." 

Unbelievers positively disbelieve the myths and 
miracles narrated in the Bible, such as 

The Garden of Eden story. The flood. 

The tale of a gale of wind that caused the sea "to 
go back," divide the waters and make of their bottom 
dry land upon which the Israelites went forward be- 
tween walls of water. 

The miracle of converting a rod held by Moses 
into a snake and the re-conversion of the snake into a 
rod. The miracle of Aaron casting his rod before 
Pharaoh, when it became a serpent; again the miracle 
that Aaron "smote the waters that were in the sea and 
turned them into blood." 

The miracle of Aaron smiting with his rod the dust 



WHY UNBELIEF? 137 

of the earth, so that it became "lice on man and beast." 

The performance of Joshua, at whose command the 
sun stood still upon Gideon until his people avenged 
themselves upon their enemies. 

The human loquacity of Balaam's ass. 

The Jonah and the great fish narrative. 

The miracle claimed to have been wrought by 
Jesus in the raising of Lazarus to life after he had lain 
in his grave for four days. 

The miraculous conception of Mary. 

The miracle of the bodily resurrection of Jesus 
three days after his crucifixion on the cross, and the 
miracle of his bodily ascension to heaven. 

Unbelievers flatly refuse to accept as true the ac- 
counts of all miracles because a miracle explicitly con- 
tradicts in totality all that is known of the processes 
of Nature. The proof of just one miracle would con- 
vert unbelievers into believers in miracles. The possi- 
bility of a miracle must first be established. David 
Hume's argument (never answered) is that "a miracle 
is a violation of the laws of Nature; and, as a firm and 
unalterable experience has established these laws, the 
proof against a miracle from the very nature of the fact, 
is as entire as any argument from experience as can 
possibly be imagined." 

Unbelievers are authoritatively advised that the 
Bible-theological doctrines that Jesus was conceived by 
the Holy Ghost, and that he was materially resurrected 
on the third day after his crucifixion, are regarded by 
Bible scholars as proofs of their late origin, because 
they were not known to the Christians of the first cen- 
tury and unknown before the Four Gospels were writ- 
ten and falsely ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
John. 

Unbelievers are forced to note the conflicting testi- 
mony contained in the Bible. Professor Wilbur F. 



138 WHY UNBELIEF? 

Steele, a noted Christian scholar says:" "Evidently every 
letter of the English Bible has not been miraculously 
watched over. He who has neither eyes nor conscience 
may affirm it, but persons provided with these cannot. 
If the affirmer hedges by saying he did not refer to 
translations but to the 'original 5 we note (1) that trans- 
lations are the only thing most people have to go to 
heaven on; and (2) that scholars of truth and con- 
science find equally as much fault with the 'original/ 
There are hundreds, if not thousands^ of places in 
which the scholar finds conflicting testimony." 

In reading the Bible unbelievers find that the con- 
ceptions of so-termed inspired writers not only included 
numerous gods, but were in conspicuous conflict as to 
their concepts of the God of the Hebrews. The reader 
will note the following illustrations: 

"Do not I fill the heaven and earth? saith the 
Lord.— Jeremiah XXIII, 24. 

"The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain 
him." — Second Chronicles II, 6. 

"If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I 
make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take 
the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me." — 
Psalms CXXXIX, 8-10. 

Thus is the omnipresence of God conceived. Con- 
sider the following concepts to the contrary : 

"The Lord was not in the wind * * * the 
Lord was not in the earthquake." — I Kings XIX, 11. 

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, 
and dwelt in the land of Nod." — Genesis IV, 16. 

"And he said unto Balak, stand here by thy burnt 
offering, while I meet the Lord yonder." — Numbers 
XXIII, 15. 

"Go down, charge the people, lest they break 
through unto the Lord to gaze." — Ex. XIX, 21. 



WHY UNBELIEF? 139 

"God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe 
unto us ! For there hath not been such a thing before." 
— First Samuel IV, 7. 

The reader will also note the following contradic- 
tory conceptions of God: 

God is omnipotent — 
"With God all things are possible."— Matt. XIX, 26. 

"There is nothing too hard for thee." — Jeremiah 
XXXII, 17. 

For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." — Rev. 
XIX, 6. 

God is not omnipotent — 

"And the Lord was with Judah, and he (the Lord) 
drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could 
not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they 
had chariots of iron." — Judges I, 19. 

God is omniscient — 

"God * * * knoweth all things." — First John 
III, 20. 

"He knoweth the secrets of the heart." — 
Prov. XV, 3. 

"No thought can be withholden from thee." — Job 
XIII, 2. 

God is not omniscient — 

"The Lord thy God led thee forty years in the wil- 
derness, * * * * to know what was in thine heart." 
— Deut. VIII, 2. 

"The Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Go- 
morrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, 
I will go down and see whether they have done alto- 
gether according to the cry of it, which is come unto 
me; and if not I will know." — Genesis XVII, 21. 

God is not changeable — 

"I am the Lord, I change not."— Mai. Ill, 6. 

"With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of 
turning." — James I, 17. 



140 WHY UNBELIEF? 

"My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing 
that is gone out of my lips/' — Ps. LXXXIX, 34. 

"He is not a man that he should repent." — First 
Samuel XV, 29. 

God is changeable— 

"I (God) am weary with repenting." — Jere- 
miah XV, 6. 

"It repented the Lord that he had made man of 
the earth." — Genesis VI, 6. 

"The Lord repented that he had made Saul king 
over Israel." — First Samuel XV, 35. 

"And God repented of the evil that he said he would 
do unto them; and he did it not." — Jonah III, 10. 

"The Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that 
thy house and the house of thy father should walk 
before me forever; but now the Lord sayeth, be it far 
from me." — First Samuel II, 30. 

Unbelievers note that some of the "inspired" 
writers conceived God as visible; others described him 
as being invisible. The "inspired" writers were influ- 
enced by their own particular notions and conjectures 
in writing of that which they knew nothing about. 

Unbelievers do not accept the Bible as a moral 
guide with the exception of those portions wherein it 
commands morality pure and undefiled. All the pure 
morality contained in the ten commandments, in the 
books of the Old as well as of the New Testament, ex- 
isted and was practiced many thousands of years before 
the Bible came into existence. They believe that one 
may find in the Bible authority and defense for about 
all the crimes ever known to man or ever recorded in 
the annals of human iniquity. It may thus be held to 
authorize and thus encourage polygamy, adultery, 
tyranny, intolerance and persecution, and it has been 
cited by bigots as authority for the destruction of many 
millions of human beings. Unbelievers are entirely 



WHY UNBELIEF? 141 

unable to conceive of any God that would incite the 
creatures of his own creation to commit all manner of 
diabolical crimes and thus multiply the sufferings and 
miseries of vast numbers of those representing his 
handiwork. 

Unbelievers regard the Jehovah of the Hebrews 
as cruel, vindictive, changeable and unjust. They ab- 
hor the wickedness of Abraham, a barbarian, who mar- 
ried his sister, denied his wife and seduced her hand- 
maid. They likewise abhor the actions of Jacob, who 
deceived and robbed his father, cheated his uncle, and 
practiced polygamy. They are Biblically informed that 
Moses exterminated a nation to secure the spoils of war, 
butchered in cold blood thousands of captive widows, 
tore babes from their dying mothers and put them to 
death, and committed other most heinous offenses. 
They class Moses as belonging to the worst type of war- 
murderers in the history of the human race. Unbeliev- 
ers read in the Bible David's record of foul language, 
of his record as a traitor, a robber, a liar, as a butcher 
of thousands of men, women and children, as a drunken 
debauchee, as a polygamist with wives and concubines, 
and so forth. There is much obscene language in the 
Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Remsburg truly 
says: "There are at least a hundred passages (in the 
Bible) so obscene that their appearance in another book 
would exclude that book from the mails and send its 
publishers to prison. * * * There are entire chap- 
ters, such as the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, that 
reek with obscenity from beginning to end." 

JESUS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Unbelievers affirm : 

That the existence of Jesus, the Christ of Christian- 
ity as portrayed in the New Testament, is enveloped in 
serious doubt; that Jesus typifies an ideal; that if the 



142 WHY UNBELIEF? 

man Jesus lived about nineteen hundred years ago the 
accounts of his doings and utterances are altogether 
traditional, and that the traditions associated with his 
life were similar in character to the traditions of other 
saviours of mankind who were said to have been mi- 
raculously conceived, were born of virgins, and put to 
death. There is much evidence to show that the New 
Testament narratives of Jesus are based upon an ideal 
character and not upon the doings of a particular indi- 
vidual of flesh and blood. Josephus, a voluminous his- 
torian of the first century, wrote twenty books. He 
makes no reference whatever to Jesus except what is 
contained in one passage of about fifteen lines. That 
only such brief reference should be made in a history 
of human events, contemporaneous with the time of 
Jesus, is indeed very suggestive ; and, when it is shown 
by scholars accustomed to carefully analyzing ancient 
history that the brief mention of Jesus in Josephus 
was a fraudulent interpolation — that it was not written 
by Josephus but incorporated in his work to establish 
the real person of Jesus, historically, the presence of 
the interpolated passage gives rise to serious doubts 
respecting what is narrated in the New Testament of 
the earthly doings of Jesus ; serious doubts as to his hav- 
ing existed in the flesh. 

Dr. Lardner in his works, vol. 1, chapter IV, says 
of the passage in Josephus concerning Jesus: "This 
passage is not quoted or referred to by any Christian 
writer before Eusebius, who flourished at the beginning 
of the fourth century. If it had been originally in the 
works of Josephus, it would have been highly proper 
to produce it in their disputes with Jews and Gentiles; 
but it is never quoted by Justin Martyr or Clement of 
Alexandria, nor by Tertullian or Origen, men of great 
learning, and well acquainted with the works of Jo- 
sephus. It was certainly very proper to urge it against 



WHY UNBELIEF? 143 

the Jews. It might also have been fitly urged against 
the Gentiles. A testimony so favorable to Jesus in the 
works of Josephus, who lived so soon after our Saviour, 
who was so well acquainted with the transactions of his 
own country, who had received so many favors from 
Vespasian and Titus, would not be overlooked or neg- 
lected by any Christian apologist." 

In the same chapter of his works Dr. Lardner 
quotes Bishop Warburton as having declared: "If a 
Jew owned the truth of Christianity, he must needs 
embrace it. We, therefore, certainly conclude that the 
paragraph where Josephus, who was as much of a Jew 
as the religion of Moses could make him, is made to 
acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, in terms as strong as 
words could make them, is a rank forgery, and a very 
stupid one, too." 

Kersey Graves in his "Sixteen Crucified Saviours" 
gives the names of the number (sixteen) of saviours and 
their dates of crucifixion. He observes : 

"Several of these saviours were said to have been 
begotten of God and born of virgins; half the number 
were crucified for the salvation of the world, dying in 
great agony; and, all were said to have received favors 
from heaven and were considered mediators and aton- 
ing sacrifices for the sons of men prior to the reputed 
life and death of Jesus. Thus we see that in many na- 
tions long before the Christian era the belief in a cruci- 
fied saviour had an existence. Then is it not easy to 
see whence the idea was derived? 

"That the traditions, rites, ceremonies and dog- 
mas of Christianity were copied or purloined 
from older religious systems is easily seen. (1) The 
birth of many of the saviours of the ancients were 
claimed to have been pointed out by the stars. (2) Sev- 
eral of them were said to have been born in a stable 
and in a manger. (3) The birth of a number of them 



144 WHY UNBELIEF? 

was announced by angels to shepherds. (4) Wise men 
or magicians were claimed to have visited them in their 
early infancy, and to have worshipped and made them 
presents. (5) The 25th of December was the birthday 
designated for several of them, and has been a special 
day for feasts and various ceremonies in honor of 
the sons of gods for thousands of years. (6) The 
titles of the heathen saviours were much like those 
claimed for the Judean saviour, including the Most 
High, the Lord of Life, Son of God, Saviour, Redeemer 
of the World, The Lamb of God. (7) The legend of 
the saviour being saved from destruction when all other 
infants were killed — as in the time of Herod — was 
handed down from centuries before that date. (8) The 
retirement and forty days of fasting of the Saviour is 
an ancient legend. (9) The performance of miracles 
was attributed to nearly all the saviours, and greatly 
dwelt upon. Several raised the dead. * * * At the 
crucifixion of some of them the sun was said to have 
been darkened and earthquakes to have taken place. 
The claim that they arose from the dead, from the 
grave, and from the sepulcher, was accorded to a num- 
ber of them. The miraculous ascension into heaven 
was claimed for a part, at least of the original saviours. 
The doctrine of the Trinity is a thousand years older 
than Christianity. The Holy Ghost idea came from 
India. Immortality of the soul was first taught by 
pagans." — Dr. D. M. Bennet's "Gods and Religions of 
Ancient and Modern Times." 

Unbelievers are frequently reminded of the Chris- 
tian virtues — faith, hope and charity. These virtues 
are altogether natural to man and are practiced and 
encouraged to a greater or less degree by all mankind. 
But is it not true as Volney says : "Faith and hope may 
be called the virtues of dupes for the benefit of knaves"? 
Is it not true that the highest types of mankind, like 



WHY UNBELIEF? 145 

Bruno, Spinoza, Paine and Ingersoll, have been ma- 
ligned, anathematized, or slain by Christians, while the 
gods, heroes, patriarchs, prophets and priests of the 
Bible have been and continue to be adored as models 
of moral uprightness? 

To contend that unbelievers have no authority or 
reason to dispute the divinity of Jesus, to dispute the 
narratives respecting both his divinity and real exis- 
tence as set forth in the New Testament, would be an 
unfair and inconsiderate contention. For unbelievers 
who emphatically deny the divinity of Jesus, who thus 
deny the reality of all the miracles claimed to have 
been wrought by him, and unbelievers who dispute his 
ever having existed in flesh and blood, subscribe to 
all that is good, just, merciful, humane, loving, char- 
itable and right contained in any of the statements 
made by Christ or in all of the statements he is reputed 
to have made, as set forth in the New Testament. 
Moreover, they insistently maintain that the practice 
on the part of humanity of all that is naturally good and 
virtuous in Christianity does not require humanity to 
accept any of the claims of Christianity or of supernat- 
uralistic theology which can be shown to be false, evi- 
dentially. This is exactly the position of unbelievers, 
and it is the obvious duty of believers to reflect seri- 
ously upon the position thus stated. It is vitally im- 
portant that all that is good and true in Christianity, or 
in any religion, should be efifectualized in practice by 
the human race, but it cannot in fairness be expected of 
any individual to believe that which cannot honestly be 
believed because of the want of evidence conclusive 
and satisfactory to the individual. Believers are ex- 
pected to be considerate enough to meditate along the 
lines indicated. Unbelievers by no means insist that 
believers shall renounce their beliefs, or any comfort 
they may derive from their beliefs, but unbelievers do 



146 WHY UNBELIEF? 

insist that believers shall be fair enough to exercise 
their common sense and ungrudgingly grant unbeliev- 
ers the same rights and privileges they themselves en- 
joy, respecting belief and unbelief, and all other mat- 
ters. Unbelievers happen to know that very many 
strong believers are weak in practicing the natural 
goodness and the natural virtues that inhere in Chris- 
tianity. Such persons and all other believers are re- 
spectfully reminded that unbelievers are just as much 
concerned about the real betterment of humanity as are 
believers. Unbelievers are as much concerned in les- 
sening human wickedness and increasing human hap- 
piness as are believers. But unbelievers, nevertheless, 
refuse to accept as true the theological dogma of "sal- 
vation by faith" or other dogmas involving pure myths 
and assumptions. Unbelievers insist that the salvation 
of humanity on earth depends upon the faithful dis- 
charge of human obligations, of duties one toward an- 
other and that, since nobody knows anything about 
heaven hereafter, there is no reason to be seriously con- 
cerned respecting mere conjectures. The serious, para- 
mount problem is that of improving, bettering and ele- 
vating human conditions here and now. The solution 
of this problem requires the united efforts of believers 
and unbelievers ; and it is essential, in more effectually 
promoting such united efforts, that believers and un- 
believers should reason together like full-grown, ra^ 
tional men and women. Without the application of 
reason, without the doing of right for the sake of right, 
human salvation from error and wickedness will be 
impossible. 

The power of accomplishment which good deeds 
possess, whether such deeds be performed by believers 
or unbelievers, is the power that virtually exalts indi- 
viduals and nations. 

Believers are respectfully advised that if what 



WHY UNBELIEF? 147 

they believe is of truth they should cordially invite 
rather than condemn the investigation of the founda- 
tion of their beliefs, and that no statement can ulti- 
mately be sustained as of the truth by hurling anath- 
emas. If the contentions of unbelievers are not valid 
unbelievers desire to be advised of proof to the con- 
trary. They sincerely invite investigation. 

Whatever of substantial success, happiness, or 
well-being is derived by believers and unbelievers from 
their earthly existence, comes largely through the exer- 
cise of their rational senses. Why not, therefore, asso- 
ciate common sense with belief, whatever its character, 
thus affording some room for honest doubt, respecting 
whatever can be shown to be involved in error. 

Nothing of goodness can be lost, and much may 
be gained by exercising tolerance. Intolerance is yoked 
with unreason. It is often the boon companion of in- 
justice. 

Truth will bear the most rigid investigation and 
analysis. Intolerance hinders the search after truth. 
It retards the separation of error from truth. It is 
therefore the serious duty of believers and unbelievers 
to shun intolerance and unite their best efforts in be- 
half of the earthly welfare of mankind. 




THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

In the considerations which follow the term 
"church" will be used with particular reference to 
Catholicism and orthodox Protestantism in the United 
States, and will be employed synonymously with the 
word "religion/' 

Discussion respecting the status of the church of 
the future necessarily involves recognition of historical 
data relating to the church of the past and consideration 
of the church of the present. 

The religion of the future will not be the religion 
of the present. No change would result in its ex- 
tinction. Evolution tolerates no exceptions. Enough 
good has been associated with religion to save it from 
destruction in the past. All that is rationally and es- 
sentially true, benign and just — all that is beautiful and 
inspiring in a purely humanistic sense — must in large 
part serve as saving factors, or the church will ulti- 
mately and miserably perish as an instrumentality con- 
tributing to the welfare of mankind. 

The church of the future will be divested of its 
supernaturalism and unfounded claims in proportion 
as the masses of humanity become more rationally en- 
lightened, intellectually and morally; in proportion as 
the masses become more and more conversant with co- 
herent and verified interpretations of natural phe- 
nomena, and the logic of scientific facts. 

So long as those who are assiduously taught to 
believe in supernaturalism, and who are not encouraged 
to investigate searchingly the claims maintained by 

148 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 149 

their religious instructors, just so long will mere faith 
form one of the most influential as well as one of the 
most unreliable supports of religion. So long as the 
emotions, fears, and hopes of the human race, as dis- 
tinct from the fears and hopes arising from purely nat- 
ural relationships, are sedulously cultivated, so long 
will unfounded fear and hope form a large asset of 
organized ecclesiasticism. 

As noted elsewhere in this volume, the religious 
habit is deeply rooted and vigorously resists change; 
but, change it must in course of time. The change will 
be slow because those who have habituated themselves 
to conjecturally associate with natural phenomena a 
directive personal or "spiritual" power apart from or 
extraneous to Nature, will continue indefinitely to be 
subjected to influences arising from such conjectures, 
since it is naturally easier to indulge in habit than to 
give rational and serious consideration to discernments 
which afford fruitful evidence of the oneness of the 
universe and the naturalness of all the power for good 
and evil that determines the thoughts and actions of 
mankind everywhere. Rational considerations find 
their true basis in knowledge derived from the facts of 
human existence. This kind of knowledge does not 
exclude emotional contemplations, but classifies them 
as such, and nothing more. 

Social customs and economic conditions will con- 
tinue largely to affect the church. Religion, quite aside 
from its pure assumptions regarding the supernatural, 
is very extensively an earthly affair. The influence of 
imitation, and the fear of social and financial disad- 
vantages frequently associated with investigation and 
discussion of popular religious beliefs and pretenses, 
and the utilization of wealth in disseminating and sus- 
taining religious creeds, continue to retard rational 
enlightenment. Religion remains a popular cloak for 



150 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

unscrupulous hypocrites, and a convenient pretext in 
the furtherance of mercenary undertakings. To at- 
tend divine service regularly and participate in its 
formalities and rituals is a popular requisite in a 
majority qf communities, and much more emphasis is 
placed upon faithfulness to theological doctrines and 
religious rites than upon the requirements imposed by 
high standards of morality. Social and commercial 
influences unite in sustaining the religious habit — unite 
in opposing investigation and discussion of religious 
beliefs. 

Notwithstanding the impediments which dogmatic 
religion strews in the path of evidential knowledge, 
notwithstanding the assumptive averments of those 
piously claiming relationship to the supernatural, the 
march of human events has passed partly beyond many 
of the religious absurdities espoused and supported dur- 
ing the present and former centuries. 

Fifty years ago evolution was ridiculed and piously 
anathematized in practically all the churches of Chris- 
tendom. Now the established facts of evolution are 
generally admitted by progressive theologians (even 
though they fail to grasp in full the logic of scientific 
facts) and by church members who have sufficiently 
informed themselves. Fifty years ago eternal hell-fire 
was proclaimed from a large majority of orthodox pul- 
pits as the sure penalty for sinners unregenerated by 
faith in Christ as the redeemer of the world, and for 
unbelievers in theological creeds and dogmas. Fifty 
years ago it was widely and very seriously contended 
that a considerable portion of the human race was pre- 
destined by God "from the beginning" to eternal dam- 
nation, and that others were predestined by God to 
eternal happiness. Now, pulpiteers who preach eternal 
hell-fire and foreordination are perhaps in the minority. 
The passing of these unspeakably atrocious dogmas 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 151 

finds church members as a whole more humane and 
better in many ways (because of rational knowledge) 
than they were when the orthodox hell was extensively 
employed in behalf of evangelical Christianity. The il- 
lustrations noted will remind the reader of other evi- 
dences of religious advancement. The progress in en- 
lightened natural morality will be noted by all who 
will make careful comparisons regarding past and pres- 
ent conditions in their respective communities. 

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 

There is reason to believe that the time is coming 
when the Roman Catholic Church will stand almost 
alone as an insistent and influential exponent 
of supernaturalism. It was the first Christian organi- 
zation to utilize and commercialize the natural emo- 
tions, fears, and the ignorance of mankind by the dis- 
semination of doctrines and claims based on sacred 
writings incorporated in the Bible. It will continue 
to be the faithful exponent of such doctrines as the 
present and future Supreme Pontiffs may from time 
to time "infallibly" designate. The Roman Catholic 
Church embraces more scholarship of the linguistic- 
metaphysical type, more shrewd business acumen and 
tact, more successful adroitness in holding its masses 
together with a vice-like grip, and more Jesuitical dip- 
lomacy in adjusting its sails to storms of doubt and 
investigation, than all other Christian denominations 
combined. The cohesive power of Roman Catholicism 
centers solely in one head — the Pope. There is no di- 
vision of doctrinal or ecclesiastical authority. The Su- 
preme Pontiff is "divinely" invested with "infallibility" 
and his doctrinal interpretations of Bible texts are final. 
They are revocable by no authority except that which 
the Pope alone exercises. Moreover, the Pope is in a 
large, practical sense the very centre of the worldly 



152 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

power of the Catholic Church. The mundane power 
thus vested in the Pope is frequently underestimated 
rather than overestimated by those who are not Cath- 
olics. The whole history of Roman Catholicism bears 
abundant testimony to the effective exercise of tem- 
poral power by authority of the Papacy in directly and 
indirectly controlling large masses of mankind for the 
benefit, glory and material perpetuity of the Catholic 
Church. In former centuries Popes determined who 
should become kings and bade them what to do, and 
what not to do. Papal authority continues to be influ- 
entially felt, feared and catered to by representatives of 
the governing power of nations in many quarters of the 
globe. All its doctrinal power and a vast amount of its 
temporal power remain vested in the Supreme Pontiff, 
who brooks no contrariety of conjectural doctrines, or 
adverse material influence. The Pope has the final 
word, from which there is no appeal. Those of the 
Catholic faith who indirectly, or directly and openly dis- 
pute his authority are anathematized, if not excom- 
municated, for their heresy. This cohesive power of 
the Roman Catholic Church stands out in very sugges- 
tive and far-reaching contradistinction to the variously 
conflicting doctrines and creeds, and to the divided 
power of the Protestant churches of Christendom. 

Another advantage accruing to the "spiritual" and 
worldly interests of the Catholic hierarchy, and which 
cannot be associated with many of the orthodox Prot- 
estant denominations, is the diplomatic handling of 
the Catholic masses in matters pertaining to their 
earthly desires and inclinations respecting recreations 
and amusements. If they are faithful in their church 
devotions, in attending mass and in conforming them- 
selves to various other ceremonies, they are graciously 
permitted to partake of about all the worldly enjoyment 
they desire. This statement is not intended to imply 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 153 

that the priests or fathers in direct charge of the masses 
sanction immorality, either in their exhortations or in 
their intercourse with the laity. Their admonitions, for 
sufficient reason indeed, are all to the contrary, and 
whatever of moral influence is thus exerted cannot be 
too strongly commended. But what it intended to be 
remarked here is that the priests of the Catholic Church 
do not fanatically inveigh against indulging in many 
amusements and recreations, inherently harmless and 
helpful, on Sundays. They understand human nature 
and know how to conserve the interests of the church. 
After the Catholic laity attend to their religious de- 
votions on Sunday mornings they are excused for the 
remainder of the day. 

This theological conformity to the natural and 
largely wholesome inclinations of the faithful unques- 
tionably adds much strength to the Catholic Church. 

Another reason for the continuing solidarity of the 
Roman Catholic Church is discerned in the resourceful- 
ness of the Papacy in formulating and promulgating 
decrees in apparent harmony with "infallible" doc- 
trines. In this respect Supreme Pontiffs have exhibited 
much diplomatic adroitness. Without harking back to 
earlier centuries and recounting a number of prominent 
instances of papal cleverness in turning defeat into ap- 
parent victory, much to the satisfaction of those within 
the church who had become disturbed in faith, one ex- 
ample will be cited presently. The vigorous opposition 
of the authority of the Catholic Church (likewise of the 
authorities of Protestant churches) to every important 
discovery of science, has always distinctly characterized 
Catholicism and Protestantism. Happily both have 
virtually met defeat in every combat with science. 
When the theory of evolution was first definitely and 
comprehensively advanced by Darwin and Wallace, 
about the middle of the last century, it was promptly 



154 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

ridiculed, condemned and anathematized by Catholic 
and Protestant authorities as being in total contradic- 
tion to the story of Genesis in the Bible. By and by 
the Pope and his satellites discerned that they were 
being seriously worsted in their warfare upon evolution. 
Their combative temper gradually subsided and it was 
finally found to be both prudent and convenient not only 
to cease inveighing against evolution but to find suffi- 
cient reason to harmonize Catholic doctrines with Dar- 
winism and aver that, after all the noise that had been 
made, there was really nothing in evolution that need 
to be in conflict with Roman Catholic theology. No 
matter how absurd and ludicrous the Papal reconcilia- 
tion of the dogmas and myths of supernaturalism with 
the facts of science, the reconciliation was far-reaching 
enough to meet a critical emergency. History will only 
be repeating itself, theologically, if some day the ex- 
ponents of Catholicism put in circulation the claim that 
a Supreme Pontiff actually discovered evolution long 
before Charles Darwin was born. The head of the 
Catholic Church thus disposed of a vexatious and dan- 
gerous issue, while many of the Protestant exponents 
of supernaturalism had not yet learned that they were 
decisively defeated. Of course, all of the more ad- 
vanced of the Protestant clergy and laity now refrain 
from fighting evolution and are betimes engaged in 
harmonizing Genesis and Darwin. 

For the reasons stated, there is ground for the be- 
lief that, as the Roman Catholic church was the first 
firmly organized Christian church of influential import- 
ance to become rooted in theological doctrines derived 
from sacred writings, so it will be the last surviving or- 
ganization of any considerable magnitude to uphold 
and maintain supernaturalistic theology. 

It is earnestly to be hoped that the evolution of 
religion in the future will not be other than a peace- 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 155 

ful evolution, devoid of sanguinary conflicts and attend- 
ant human misery. 

The Catholics are fully entitled to the same re- 
ligious rights as are the Protestants — no more, no less ; 
and both are entitled to full protection in all their just 
rights. The intrusion of one or the other upon secular 
ground to obtain financial aid or potential religious sup- 
port from the government of the United States, or from 
any of the States of the Federal Union, should not be 
tolerated, because such intrusion from either source 
means the presence of the most insiduous and the most 
deadly foe of rightful human liberty. 

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH 

The truth only will permanently bear analysis and 
discussion. Any belief or statement that will not sur- 
vive rigid investigation is elementally weak and un- 
reliable. 

The Protestant Church as a whole is slowly drift- 
ing toward Rationalism. This conclusion is supported 
by many observations from unbiased viewpoints, how- 
ever ominous and dismaying it may appear to devout 
adherents of the doctrines and creeds of orthodoxy. It 
frequently happens that those who are rated as enemies 
of religious systems prove, in the course of time, to be 
the best friends of that kind of religion which practically 
results in the continued betterment of mankind. Hu- 
manity needs to be informed of unpleasant facts and 
truths. Without such information there can be no pro- 
gress. In the absence of verified information there 
would be no guide posts established in the wilderness of 
human thought; intellectual and moral progress would 
be impossible. Again, it is not unusual that those who 
are on the outside of the church can with more precision 
estimate its weaknesses than those actively participa- 
ting in church work. Those bent upon following 



156 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

beaten paths in religious, as in other matters, are 
so strongly habituated in conforming themselves to cer- 
tain lines of movement that they are much more likely 
to overestimate the value or real importance of their 
activities than to form approximately accurate judg- 
ments. They are not in the habit of diverging from old 
paths, nor in the habit of viewing much contiguous ter- 
ritory. 

It is well for humanity that the drift of Protestant- 
ism is toward Rationalism. The drift originated con- 
temporaneously with the beginning of the period of 
the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Thus Prot- 
estantism began to move toward Rationalism as soon 
as it was born and the direction of its movement remains 
unchanged. 

Though the opposition to Papal authority, and to 
immoralities associated with various affairs of the Cath- 
olic Church was widespread prior to the Reformation, it 
was Martin Luther's bold and emphatic attitude 
of mind that especially fitted him for the leadership of 
those who participated in the Reformation. Whatever 
may be urged in truth against Luther's tyranny, against 
the heartless persecution of those who refused to ac- 
cept his theological claims, or against the moral ob- 
liquity of this greatest exponent of the doctrine 
of "justification" and "salvation by faith," it is neverthe- 
less true that when he boldly disputed the "infallible" 
authority of the Pope in the determination of doctrines 
based upon Bible texts and in effect declared it to be 
the right of all men to read and interpret the Scriptures, 
he and his associates drove a wedge that permanently 
established the line of separation between Catholicism 
and freedom of religious belief. 

It is not a long stride from free believing in matters 
of religious faith to free thinking respecting all other 
matters. The observation that those free to believe 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 157 

as they choose are prone to deprive others of similar 
freedom is, in the long run, no argument against free 
believing, free thinking and free speech, because error 
can only be exposed in all its hideousness and truth be 
made apparent in all its strength and beauty by free 
investigation and the free interchange of statements, 
opinions and conclusions. 

The Reformers of the sixteenth century established 
an excellent precedent when they wrangled about Scrip- 
tural authority for this or that doctrine. The circula- 
tion of the Bible among the masses, the clashing of 
doctrinal exponents, and the disputations of ambitious 
Bible readers and students, have all contributed to free 
faith, free thought and free speech — all have partici- 
pated in the movement of Protestantism toward Ration- 
alism. 

The present status of the Protestant Church reveals 
much unbelief among its members in good standing. It 
is furthermore revealed that the church is rather rapidly 
losing its former hold on humanity. It is not difficult 
to account for both revelations. Many of those affil- 
iated with the various Protestant denominations no 
longer seriously believe in what are designated the es- 
sential doctrines of orthodoxy. Especially is this true 
with the male portion of church adherents. They are 
not in the habit of openly expressing their unbelief. 
Though not regular in attending church services, their 
doubts do not prevent them from deriving some satis- 
faction in whatever they esteem to be good in Chris- 
tianity as expressed from the pulpit ; in listening to the 
music, and in meeting their friends and neighbors in a 
social way. They will be ready at any time to welcome 
the disappearance of all objectionable dogmas. In 
many instances they are in advance of their pastors, 
who feel obliged to continue their insistence upon doc- 
trinal beliefs and their horror of unbelief. 



158 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

The Protestant Church is losing influence because 
its doctrines no longer appeal to those outside the 
church who have formulated entirely satisfactory opin- 
ions and conclusions respecting religion from knowl- 
edge derived from rational evidence. The latter do not, 
as a rule, assume a hostile attitude toward the church, 
but they refuse to formally identify themselves with it. 
They will not subject their reason to faith in the super- 
natural. 

If present indications are not wholly misleading, 
the Protestant Church must accelerate its movement 
toward Rationalism or ultimately become impotent and 
helpless as an instrumentality for the lasting better- 
ment of mankind. Whatever hope there may be for the 
Protestant Church of the future must be based upon 
its encouragement of activities which promote the ad- 
vancement of sound reason and sound morals. It must 
relegate to a subordinate position matters of pure con- 
jecture and pure faith. Church members should 
be fully privileged to conjecture and believe whatever 
they choose respecting that which they know nothing 
about — provided their moral status is not lowered by 
their conjectures and beliefs. Many of the notions, fan- 
tasies, and delusions arising from cerebral activity are 
relatively harmless and unobjectionable. But they 
should not be seriously proclaimed as matters of fact. 

The tasks which, apparently, the Protestant 
Church must accomplish, if it is to escape disintegration 
and widen and deepen its influence respecting all the 
moral and intellectual activities of mankind will, I trust, 
be made sufficiently plain by observations and con- 
clusions contained in the following paragraphs: 

The obliteration of the claim that whatever is 
highest and best in human civilization has been the 
work of Christianity. This claim is false. The fact is 
that the creeds and dogmas of Christianity, Catholic 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 159 

and Protestant, have proven to be a very serious hind- 
rance to human progress, because of their opposition 
to many of the important findings of science and reason 
antagonistic to such creeds and dogmas. Moreover, 
whatever the progress of civilization, intellectually and 
morally, may have been, such progress has been due to 
advancing human enlightenment, to the increasing 
recognition of factual evidence by men and women re- 
gardless of their belief or unbelief in the theological 
doctrines of Christianity. 

It is one of the present claims of the Protest- 
ant Church that absence of faith in the supernatural 
weakens the higher emotional nature in mankind. 
This is not a true claim: Knowledge of the multi- 
farious phenomena of nature stimulates the emo- 
tions and affords unlimited opportunities for contem- 
plation respecting the boundlessness of space, the 
minor part our earth sustains to the solar system and 
the universe, the wonders of animal and vegetable life, 
the transitory existence of all humanity, and the 
obligations of mankind arising from natural rela- 
tionships. Furthermore, those who are devoted to rea- 
soning, and who have no faith in the existence of that 
which is termed the supernatural, more easily discern 
the weaknesses and actual needs of humanity than do 
credulous believers, and thus are their emotions aroused 
and employed with more practical and helpful results. 
The obvious difference existing between the emotions 
stimulated by mere faith and those of rational thought 
is the notable difference that exists between uncon- 
trolled and misguided emotions and emotions in a large 
part controlled by reason. Evil arising from emotions 
aroused by credulity is of frequent occurrence. It is 
one of the tasks of the Protestant Chruch to encourage, 
within rational bounds, the emotions associated 
with all motives concerning the amelioration of human 



160 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

conditions, and the true progress of mankind. 

The doctrines of "original sin" and "salvation by 
faith" have proved more destructive to man's natural 
confidence in himself than all other theological conjec- 
tures that have been inflicted upon humanity. In the 
very nature of the case, those who have been instructed 
to believe seriously that they are by nature utterly 
wicked and sinful have imposed upon them an obstruc- 
tion to visions aroused by the natural moral sensibil- 
ities everywhere in evidence among mankind. The 
sincere belief on the part of any man that he was "born 
in sin" and that his "salvation" depends upon faith in 
the atoning, saving power of a saviour, so influences 
him that when he is not altogether under the halluci- 
nations of mere belief he is more inclined to immorality 
than if he were within himself under the abiding influ- 
ences of natural morality enlightened by knowledge of 
the natural effects (upon himself and others) of what- 
ever form of wickedness. It is of vastly more import- 
ance that those who inflict harm, misery, and injustice 
upon others should make amends to, and crave the for- 
giveness of, those subjected to their wrong doing, than 
that they should seek forgiveness from an unknown 
source. It has always been the practice of orthodox 
believers to ask Christ to forgive them without making 
reparation to those actually suffering the wrongs in- 
flicted upon them. This all too common habit is at the 
very root of a vast amount of evil and injustice. The 
natural effect of insisting upon "salvation by faith" has 
been to encourage not to prevent immoral conduct. The 
outstanding absurdity associated with this doctrine is 
the theological postulate that no matter how moral a 
man or woman or boy or girl may be, unless they 
have full and implicit faith in Christ's atoning power 
and his power to forgive sin, he or she will be among 
the damned. This monstrous doctrine — totally unsup- 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 161 

ported, except by pious incredulity — grossly and 
shamefully underestimates the importance of natural 
deeds of goodness and virtue. It fosters faith at the 
expense of moral conduct, because of the ease of form- 
ally praying for forgiveness after the commission of 
immoral acts. Had it not been for the natural moral 
sensibilities of mankind in times past the effectual re- 
sults of "salvation by faith" would have proved appall- 
ingly disastrous. 

The theological dogmas, as outlined, are passing — 
are doomed to die, if the Protestant Chruch is to live 
on and make progress. There is reason to believe that 
Protestantism will in the course of time endorse the 
conclusion that the highest type of manhood requires, 
on the part of the individual, a keen sense of personal 
responsibility for the effects of the acts and deeds of 
the individual, and that "salvation by faith" will come 
through faith in natural goodness, justice and helpful- 
ness representing influences with which to overcome 
human wickedness of every kind. All that is really 
good in what Jesus said or did, and all that is good in 
the Bible must necessarily continue as helpful factors. 
Mankind will never be divested of ideals to strive after, 
but the highest ideals possible of practical materializa- 
tion will have to be distinctly associated with the 
struggle to obtain the greatest possible goodness and 
rational happiness for the greatest possible number of 
the inhabitants of our planet. Whatever there be of 
the so-called "divine" in Christ's earthly career will be 
worshipped and emulated, and this is far more essential 
than blind faith in his miraculous conception and in 
other miracles associated with his life, and death. 

A task involving several particular features of far- 
reaching import concerning the relationship existing be- 
tween Protestantism and Catholicism, lies ahead. Prot- 
estants as a rule distrust and fear the Catholic Church. 



162 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

Catholics have no love for the Protestant Church. 
This mutual distrust frequently results in pro- 
nounced antagonisms. Fear and distrust on the part of 
Protestants have distorted rather than clarified their 
reason and judgment and have thus far prevented them 
from squarely facing their opponents and straight- 
forwardly demanding the application of fairness and 
justice on the part of themselves as well as on 
the part of their adversaries. Distorted vision en- 
courages them to insist doggedly upon the reading 
of the Bible in the public schools throughout 
the country, thus affording the authorities of 
Catholicism with a strong argument in making ap- 
peals to secular government for financial aid for some of 
their institutions — parochial schools included. The 
Catholics even go so far as to characterize the public 
schools as "godless" because Catholics do not re- 
cognize the Protestant religion as expressive of true 
faith. The Protestant Bible and Protestant teachers in 
the public schools are very repulsive to them. For these 
reasons the Catholics declare that, while they must 
help to support the public schools, the public schools 
dangle heresies right before their eyes. A conclusion 
not devoid of much current evidence in its support is, 
that orthodox Protestants, if they could so conduct sec- 
ular government, state and national, as to conform to 
the doctrinal and substantial interests of the Protest- 
ant Church, would compel all other citizens, of what- 
ever faith, or of no doctrinal faith, to help bear the 
financial burden. They do not effectualize their pro- 
gram in full because they are not permitted to do so. 
Along the line indicated the Catholics are like the Prot- 
estants. Both would coerce, if they could, the people of 
the United States into full financial support of their 
theological assumptions — all in violation of the consti- 
tution of the United States — all in antagonism to hu- 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 163 

man liberty. Therefore, it is both the duty and task of 
Protestants to arouse within themselves their natural 
sensibilities regarding liberty, justice, fairness and com- 
mon honesty, challenge the Catholics before all man- 
kind, and proceed about as follows : (1) Take the Bible 
out of the public schools, declare their ability to take 
care of the Protestant Bible in their homes, churches 
and Sunday schools, or other purely religious and self- 
supporting schools, and demand that the Catholics shall 
absolutely recognize and establish the same limitations. 
(2) Demand, and demand insistently, that a purely sec- 
ular code of sound morals — a code that would be un- 
qualifiedly endorsed by all sane citizens of average sense 
and decent deportment, regardless of their religious 
beliefs — be seriously taught for a given period during 
every school day. Humanity is woefully in need of in- 
struction in the moralities and virtues, now insufficient- 
ly practiced by mankind. The welfare of society ab- 
solutely depends upon such instruction and it should, 
therefore, be made a prominent part of public school 
work. (3) Demand that no religious propaganda of any 
description be permitted to be in any way associated 
with public school work. The enforcement of the de- 
mands stated would reduce the validity of all Catholic 
argument against the public schools to a mass of in- 
consequential fragments. The augmentation of the 
strength and influence of the Protestant Church de- 
pends to a very considerable extent upon the perform- 
ance of tasks and duties in harmony with justness, fair- 
ness and honesty, with whatever is right in all re- 
ligions, and with whatever subserves the welfare of 
humanity. The common sense, common honesty, and 
justice naturally invested in mankind are the supporting 
pillars of any form of civilization entitled to respect and 
consideration. 

In so far as individuals, or society as a whole, exhibit 



164 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

in any particular more dishonesty and injustice than 
honesty and justice, in that particular they are destruc- 
tive, not constructive in character. In that particular 
their influence is demolishing that which is good and 
building up that which is evil. Now, it is a glaring fact, 
whether generally so recognized by Protestants and 
Catholics or not, that the non-taxation of church prop- 
erties, and all real estate utilized for the support of 
ecclesiasticism, is evidence of rank injustice and utter 
selfishness. If Protestants were required to pay tax 
upon their church properties, while Catholics were ex- 
empted from tax upon all their church edifices, there 
would likely ensue revolution and bloodshed. As tax 
laws now exist the church holdings of both Catholics 
and Protestants are free from tax. Whatever of antag- 
onism exists between them in many particulars, all bask 
serene and content on the common ground of non-tax- 
able church property. However, Catholics and Pro- 
testants alike enjoy religious and property protection 
of secular government, and rightly so, to the same ex- 
tent as do many millions of other citizens who do not 
accept the theological doctrines of supernaturalism, and 
who are not allowed exemption from taxation. This 
manifestly unequal and unjust application of secular 
power is iniquitous and should not be tolerated by the 
American people, whatever the pretentions and virtu- 
ally unsupported claims of ecclesiaticism. The non-tax- 
ation of church property is an unjustifiable subjection 
of right to the power of might. What justice is there 
in laws that compel millions of good citizens to pay an- 
nually great sums of money that should be paid by 
those who claim to derive great comfort and satisfac- 
tion from their particular forms of religious faith? 
None at all. Politicians and lawmakers by reason of 
their ignorance of the principles of justice, and their 
reprehensible cowardice — particularly their cowardice 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 165 

— will maintain this foul injustice until Protestants and 
their friends unite and demand its obliteration. It 
should not be within the province of the Protestant 
Church to make moral cowards of lawmakers. But it is 
clearly within its province to assist in upholding justice, 
honesty and fairness. 

It is also the task of the Protestant Church of the 
present and future to discountenance effectively the 
vanities, vulgarities and snobbery arising from the ex- 
travagances of wealth as practiced by those who can and 
those who cannot afford to pay the price. The flum- 
meries, if not indecencies, of the rich will always be 
aped by a certain proportion of those of moderate or 
small financial means. While it is not the business of 
the Protestant Church to indulge in tirades against 
wealth, honestly obtained, it is its business to practice 
within the scope of its influence the democ- 
racy in the teachings ascribed to Christ — and not pros- 
titute saving principles of government by catering and 
bowing to the extravagances and snobbery of wealth. 
It is the work of the Protestant Church to attract all 
people, whatever their station in life, increase their store 
of knowledge, help them in their weakness and encour- 
age them to lead upright lives. This is the crucial test 
of church work. 

The Protestant Church of to-day needs very much 
the intellectual, moral and financial support of those 
who are outside the church. This support can large- 
ly be secured in the course of time by the exercise of 
reason on the part of Protestants and the wider appli- 
cation of such influences as are indisputably good and 
helpful within the church in unison with the good in- 
tentions and purposes of all good men and women, now 
without the church. How? By making every church 
edifice in every community an attractive and influential 
centre of moral, intellectual, and social progress; by 



166 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

encouraging admissions to church membership regard- 
less of the personal beliefs and unbeliefs of all who are 
endeavoring to lead good and useful lives, and stimu- 
lating them to attain helpful and noble purposes; by 
making church buildings the centres of various forms 
of rational enjoyment and recreation. There are 
millions of young men and women in the United States 
who are in need of the influences thus outlined, and 
they can be brought to identify themselves directly 
with the Protestant Church in no other way than by the 
attraction of the influences noted. Dogmas and doc- 
trines have been on trial for centuries. Their failufe 
as moral instrumentalities and their retrogressive 
effects are becoming more and more evident. The 
power of the Protestant Church is waning. The young 
men and women of the twentieth century, who reason 
well and think clearly about what they know, cannot 
be persuaded or forced seriously to accept dogmas that 
appear as objectionable or repulsive to them, or be at- 
tracted by unsupported claims. Their reason and moral 
sense await appeal and encouragement. There is a 
mighty work for the Protestant Church to accomplish 
if it will courageously contemplate existing human con- 
ditions and act accordingly along the lines indicated. 
Is it not the urgent task of the Protestant Church to 
extend to all outside the church the strong hand of 
sincere human fellowship and solicit their united sup- 
port in making the earth a better and happier abiding 
place — without stipulating the acceptance of theolog- 
ical conjectures as a condition of church membership — 
and to make all churches centres of intellectual and 
moral enlightenment and social betterment? This may 
sound obsurd and quite presumptuous to those theolog- 
ians who feel themselves to be absolutely convinced re- 
specting their claims to supernatural wisdom. But, has 
it not occurred to them that they are losing their hold? 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 167 

Must the Protestant Church fall into decay because of 
their sincerity in believing that which is being gradu- 
ally doomed to repudiation by advancing human 
thought? They can no more stay evolutionary pro- 
gress than walk without legs. Whatever their attitude 
may be in contemplating the future, it is respectfully 
suggested that orthodox Protestants, habituated to cer- 
tain beliefs, should by no means be expected to re- 
linquish any faith or belief in supernaturalism from 
which they derive comfort and consolation, but that 
such faith or belief should be strictly regarded as their 
personal, private affair. In the Protestant Church of 
the future all members, believers and unbelievers, 
should be required to respect alike those of honest belief 
and those of honest unbelief in supernaturalism. All 
are flesh and blood; all are of the earth, earthly; all 
must suffer the sorrows of living. Why not therefore 
all unite for the earthly welfare of all? What argument 
is there to the contrary? 

The Protestant Church of the future — if it is to 
have a future worth while — must be largely stripped of 
the influence of presumptuous and tyrannical bigotry; 
stripped of the barnacles of fanaticism; stripped of its 
intrusive interference with secular rights. Sanctimoni- 
ous cant and intermeddling invite the repudiation and 
condemnation of mankind. All pious claims should 
not be permitted to escape rigid analysis at the 
bar of reason, common sense and common jus- 
tice. If the Protestant Church cannot exist without 
the support of special and unwarranted secular legis- 
lation to uphold and enforce its presumptuous super- 
natural claims it deserves to die. The pomposity of 
pious egoism lacks the elements of abiding strength. 

The Protestant Church must seek to establish a 
kingdom of heaven on earth. This consideration must 
clearly transcend all conjectural faiths. It must 



168 THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

frankly and forcefully contend that future existence 
beyond the grave — if such there be — would be a most 
miserable farce without all the really essential ele- 
ments of natural goodness, right, justice and virtue 
which now adorn mankind; to contend that one world 
is all that the finite mortals of earth can ever hope to 
attend to effectively in obtaining results beneficial to 
mankind; and that, therefore, purely earthly consider- 
ations are first, last, and all the time, of greatest import- 
ance and consequence. These contentions can be effi- 
ciently maintained without requiring any individual to 
sacrifice any faith concerning realms of the un- 
known that may afford comfort or satisfaction, pro- 
vided all individuals are equally and cheerfully privi- 
leged to entertain the faith or belief of their own 
liking. But the subjection of faith respecting the un- 
known and unproven to what is known and proven is 
vitally essential to lasting human progress. 

THe Protestant Church of the future will be ex- 
pected to encourage the worship of the beautiful and 
sublime in Nature and stimulate inquiry into natural 
processes; to worship the good in mankind and shun 
evil, and in all respects and by all available means do 
its part in establishing, in so far as it is possible to do 
so, a kingdom of heaven on earth, as the sanest and 
most effective preparation for whatever may be claimed 
to be the portion of humanity beyond the activities of 
the life that now is. No heaven can be established any- 
where in the boundlessness of space without Reason, 
Truth, Love, Justice and Charity, because any abode 
for humanity, not in large part characterized by what 
these terms denote, would be hell, not heaven. 

What the world needs most and must need most 
in all future time is the union, upon common ground, of 
all reasonable, right doing men and women to 
battle for the enlightenment and uplift of the hu- 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 169 

man race for this world, in opposition to all influences 
which make for the downfall of man and the destruc- 
tion of civilized society. It is of little consequence 
what a man believes, or disbelieves, provided his acts 
and deeds comport with sound natural morality, and 
provided further he has sense enough to fully accord 
to others the privilge to choose their own beliefs and 
insist upon right-living on the part of all. It is the God 
or good in man that requires worshipping. It is the 
Devil or evil in man that needs to be held under control 
and subdued. The conflict is unceasing. The highest 
possible destiny of the human race absolutely depends 
upon the victorious domination of the good and be- 
nign influences of mankind in the struggle against all 
that is evil and destructive. The Protestant Church, 
or any other religious organization, can possess itself 
of no higher or nobler ambition than the wish to per- 
form its part in discharging the paramount obligations 
arising from purely human relationships and in enlisting 
all its energies in good and helpful service in behalf of 
all mankind. 




IDEAS OF GOD 

All gods and devils are the verbalized expressions 
of the human brain in its attempts to furnish a priori 
causes for the existence of opposing influences cognized 
by the senses. All notions concerning gods and devils 
— from simple to more conjecturally complex — rep- 
resent succeeding changes in accordance with the nat- 
ural evolution of ideas. These changes are traced to 
beginnings of primitive human observation and reflec- 
tion, to the time when the phenomena arising from the 
conflict of natural elements impressed the brain of 
man and caused the imaginative creation of good and 
evil spirits, and the subsequent investment of these spir- 
its with the various parts and attributes of animals, 
man included. There were no gods and devils prior to 
the evolution of man. 

Nature afforded the material and the precise and 
complex processes of movement that eventuated in the 
evolution of man, and all conjectures respecting the 
fancied existence of good and evil spirits, gods and 
devils, were expressive of similar and differing states of 
brain matter. Primitive man was strongly impressed 
by phenomenal influences to which he was constantly 
subjected. He did not understand them, causatively. 
He saw the lightning flash, heard the thunder roar, 
crouched before tempests, and was appalled by other 
manifestations of the etements. Crudely he worshipped 
influences which seemed good and helpful to him and 

170 



IDEAS OF GOD 171 

deeply feared influences dangerous and destructive, 
from which he instinctively shrank and sought protec- 
tion. Evidently, he loved light and heat and feared 
darkness and cold. Later man, within the historical 
period, has exhibited the same emotions of credulity 
and fear, modified in form and expression, as those of 
his remote ancestors; has taken similar recognition of 
influences determinative of his weal or woe, and created 
good and evil spirits, gods and devils. Ideas of god or 
devil, evolved by the human brain, in a measure gave 
expression to the varying character of the individuals 
who conjectured them. The gods of the older religions 
have been very numerous, many of them being the dei- 
fication of extraordinary persons once existing, or re- 
puted to have existed, in the flesh. Hebrew concep- 
tions of God, in most part at least, are anthropo- 
morphic, picturing a God with all the attributes com- 
mon to humanity; a God of hate, love, vengeance, 
mercy, cruelty, justice and injustice; a God obviously 
reflecting the thoughts, wishes, fears and hopes of 
those who fear and worship — of those who expect the 
help of their God in all their undertakings, good and 
evil. The God of Christendom continues to be Hebraic 
in character, with Christ as an intermediary agent be- 
tween God and man. Those who believe in the God of 
the Bible, or in the Trinitarian Godhead, continue to 
fashion their God in the image of man and associate 
with that image extended human characteristics and 
purposes. It therefore happens that the character of 
God depends much upon the temperament and dispo- 
sition of the individual believer. The believer inclined 
to be merciful and compassionate will almost invariably 
possess a belief in and worship a "God of mercy and 
compassion." The believer who has much of the dog- 
matic and revengeful mixed with his believing and 
thinking usually invokes the wrath and vengeance of 



172 IDEAS OF GOD 

his God upon those considered wicked and upon unbe- 
lievers in his God. Those who have more of loving 
kindness than of hate for their fellow mortals ever in- 
cline to worship a God of love. These varying attitudes 
of believers are a matter of common observation to 
those who have given any attention to the psychology 
of religious beliefs. 

As previously indicated, the term God, or its equiv- 
alent, has been associated with the myriad efforts of 
humanity to account for the earth, man and all other 
existences; to centralize all causation in a supreme per- 
sonality, or knowing power, the character of the corre- 
lative attributes implied by the term depending upon 
the notions of crass ignorance — or the alluring 
mysticisms and assumptions of more educated and 
refined believers. The cause-efficient of all ideas of God 
is the universally recognized subjection of individuals 
and races to a power that immeasurably transcends the 
potentialities of human and other existences. While 
unbiased observers and students of Nature discern an 
impersonal power as inherent in or expressive of the 
processes, orderly and precise, of moving matter, those 
bound by theological cogitations conjecturally create 
an extraneous God of magnified human attributes. In 
one form or another theological concepts of God are 
prevalent and will obviously continue to exist indefi- 
nitely — because of the vested interests of exponents and 
supporters of supernaturalism. These interests require 
all manner of theological effort designed to halt pro- 
gress along any line of investigation that threatens 
analysis of supernaturalistic claims. The average dev- 
otee, under the influence and direction of orthodox 
ecclesiasticism, readily adopts and adheres to anthropo- 
morphic and Trinitarian ideas of God without question. 
The orthodox God idea, however unsusceptible of in- 
telligible definition, will indefinitely persist because it 



IDEAS OF GOD 173 

has been and will continue to be sustained by influential 
supporters of supernaturalistic theology thriving in the 
domain of credulity. Those who are educated 
to believe in miracles and miraculous conceptions 
find it rather easy to mock reason and claim a 
monopoly of the gracious gifts of their God and para- 
dise. This kind of education maintains a fruitful field 
for the growth of opposition to rational knowledge, 
for theological exponents bent upon closing avenues of 
information not in harmony with their particular sys- 
tem of outlining the designs of their God and of invok- 
ing blessings for the faithful in credulity and curses for 
unbelievers. To expect rapid changes in environmental 
influence with relation to popular God ideas is to invite 
disappointment — is to underestimate the grip of the 
theological vise upon the credulities, the hopes and the 
fears of humanity enroute from the cradle to the grave. 
But theological conceptions of God are passing, even 
though slowly. Perhaps, in the course of centuries, 
there will come a transference of the application of the 
term God from an extraneous and personified God to 
a God inherent in humanity and entirely expressive 
of natural and constructive influences. 

A RATIONALISTIC IDEA OF GOD 

A rationalistic idea or concept of God involves the 
following fundamental and other considerations: The 
processes of Nature are constructive and destructive. 
Through constructive processes our earth came into 
existence as part of the solar system. No doubt at 
some future time — nobody can tell when — it will be- 
come disintegrated by destructive processes into the 
nebular or attenuated form of matter from which it was 
derived. Our earth is perhaps, comparatively speaking, 
young. Nature as a whole takes no account of the 
youth, middle life, or old age of planets, or of all other 



174 IDEAS OF GOD 

existences. Natural processes go on and on, eternally. 
Human existence is only one of the multifarious result- 
ants of these processes. The constructive process 
builds up, the destructive tears down. When the indi- 
vidual begins to live, as such, the individual begins to 
die. Organic life is the phenomenal expression of op- 
posing influences — constructive and destructive. Just 
so with all the activities of the human organism. There- 
fore all constructive influences are to be considered as 
promotive of love, reason, truth, justice, goodness, use- 
fulness, helpfulness, happiness and all truly benign in- 
fluences of whatever character; influences which advan- 
tageously affect the lives of individuals, the life of so- 
ciety, the life of nations. All these influences a Ration- 
alist chooses to group under one head or one term — 
God ! Wherever there are throughout the universe con- 
structive processes, there also is the Rationalist's God — 
co-eternal with matter. A Rationalist's God is a God of 
Love, Reason, Truth, Right, Justice, Goodness, Happi- 
ness, and of every influence whatsoever that contributes 
to the welfare of all mankind! A Rationalist can con- 
ceive of no other God. In so far as he conforms his life 
to all the constructive influences relating to human 
existence he is in harmony with his God — in rythmic 
harmony with the constructive power of the universe! 
W r hen not in harmony with his God he is allied with 
destructive influences and is more or less in partner- 
ship with evil, as are all his fellow mortals at times — in 
association with the Evil or Devil in human nature. 
The Rationalist is well persuaded by known facts to 
conclude that, should what is naturally and humanly 
destructive or evil dominate mankind as a whole for 
any length of time, the human race would rush to de- 
struction. Therefore he worships the God in human 
nature and, if he is a good Rationalist, he strives to 
conform his life to a Rationalistic conception of God, 



IDEAS OF GOD 175 

without selfish anticipation of reward or fear of pun- 
ishment in a hypothetical hereafter. He is chiefly con- 
cerned about the consequential effects of his deeds, 
good and evil, here and now. One world at a time, 
and more of heaven and less of hell on earth being his 
chief concern, he takes account of the necessity of shun- 
ning hell as much as possible. Moreover reverence for 
his God requires him to be wholly engaged, now and 
here, with the real earthly affairs of this life only; and 
he regards a hypothetical future life — about which he 
knows nothing — as entirely beyond the realm of known 
realities. 

Objectors to a Rationalistic conception of God, as 
outlined in the preceding paragraph, are respectfully 
advised that followers of science and rationalists must 
accept the fact, verified by historical and scientific evi- 
dence, that all ideas relating to supernatural gods and 
saviours are the products of the human brain; that a 
personal God has been created by man himself in the 
image of man, and that the man-animal has been no- 
toriously inclined to estimate the purposes of his God 
from human view-points. It does not follow, however, 
that naturalists and rationalists must refuse to adopt 
the use of the term "God," or the God-idea, radically 
changed in character by rational enlightenment in the 
domain of demonstrable knowledge. Not at all. It 
is their privilege to philosophically excuse the monop- 
olists of paradise and the formulators of hell for un- 
believers and infidels and conform their God to the re- 
quirements of common sense, to the facts of human ex- 
istence, of the rationalism which recognizes the uni- 
versal brotherhood of man, the common destiny of the 
race and the oneness of the universe. Thus rationalists 
are obliged to reject all anthropomorphic and "spirit- 
ual" ideas of God and supernaturalistic assumptions. 
But they are required to recognize and reverence the 



176 IDEAS OF GOD 

influences involved in the processes of Nature which 
make for Reason, Truth, Goodness, Justice, Love and 
all other helpful and humanly benign agencies — in their 
united potentialities— as constituting their concept of 
God! Moreover, the practical application of their con- 
cept of God enables them to assist actually in usher- 
ing in a kingdom of heaven on earth and in augment- 
ing the righteous power of a natural religion of service 
to humanity. Their concept of God avoids the neces- 
sity of accentuating their self-importance, or of thriv- 
ing upon the weaknesses, credulities, fears and hopes of 
mankind. 




IMMORTALITY 

The term immortality expresses a widely popular 
belief in the continued, never-ending existence of the 
human individual after death ; the logic of the Christian 
conception being the preservation of personality. The 
New Testament narrative of the bodily resurrection of 
Jesus on the third day after crucifixion and of his ascen- 
sion into heaven, forms the basis of the belief in im- 
mortality as an essential doctrine of orthodox Chris^ 
tianity. 

It is altogether suggestive that the Hebrews of the 
Old Testament had only a very vague, if any, concep- 
tion relating to immortality. Job asked the question: 
"If a man die, shall he live again?" He made no at- 
tempt to answer affirmatively. In fact he took a nega- 
tive view when he philosophized thus : 

"There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that 
it will sprout again. * * * Though the root thereof 
was old and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet 
through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth 
boughs like a plant. But man dieth and wasteth away. 
Yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he?" Wil- 
liam Frederic Bade in his "The Old Testament in the 
Light of To-day" pp. 147-148, says: "It requires con- 
siderable familiarity with ancient modes of thought to 
remain conscious of the fact that no ancient Hebrew 
practiced religion in order to save his soul, in the New 
Testament sense of that expression. He would have 

177 



178 IMMORTALITY 

understood and used the phrase in the sense of pro- 
longing life on earth, that being the chief benefit which 
he anticipated from the faithful performance of relig- 
ious duties. True, he believed in a shadowy existence 
beyond the grave. But he had no expectation of a 
future life in which Javeh might reward his virtues or 
punish his sins. Sheol was a cheerless and shadowy 
place where neither rewards nor punishments were 
distributed. Hence the religious economy of the Old 
Testament concerns itself solely with man's earthly 
life. Only in the land of the living can the worshipper 
maintain relations with the deity, or become the object 
of his regard." 

In part at least, Christianity derived the idea or 
belief in immortality, as well as the doctrine of future 
rewards and punishments, from Persian sources. How- 
ever derived, and however they came to be accentuated 
by the story of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, 
the belief in immortality, and the doctrine of rewards 
and punishments, have proven to be a powerful asset to 
orthodox Christianity. They have been assiduously 
cultivated because of the influential character of their 
hold upon the fears, hopes and credulities of mankind. 
Orthodox Christianity promises immortality for the 
individual, anticipates future rewards for the righteous, 
and predicates eternal punishment for the wicked "be- 
yond the sowing and reaping" of earthly life. It caters 
to hope and utilizes fear. It offers rewards hereafter 
for those who accept the doctrine of "salvation by faith" 
and consigns those who have no faith in Christ as the 
saviour of mankind to eternal misery. 

Conscious of human inequalities, conscious of the 
effects of goodenss and wickedness, conscious of justice 
and injustice in human affairs, believers conjecturally 
associate with immortality various states of future ex- 
istence to harmonize, as it were, with earthly experi- 



IMMORTALITY 179 

ences. Pious individuals can find no comfort in antici- 
pating everlasting association with those deemed 
wicked; therefore abodes different in character are ex- 
pected hereafter. 

Belief in immortality, though by no means univer- 
sal, is not confined to any particular race or religion. 
Beliefs in ghosts, spirits, the abodes of the gods and par- 
adise, which exhibit various extravagances and shades 
of the human imagination, are traced far back in the 
history of mankind. The earlier exponents of ortho- 
dox Christianity evidently understood their significance 
and importance as contributing instrumentalities in the 
rapid propagation and absorption of their dogmas and 
doctrines. Modern adherents of orthodox Christianity 
are not unmindful of the present efficacy of ancient 
instrumentalities. 

The genesis of belief in immortality is unquestion- 
ably rooted in the naturally innate love of life and fear 
of death. There are good psychological reasons in sup- 
port of the conclusion that, as man in course of evolu- 
tionary development became conscious of the mean- 
ing of death — as the end of his earthly activities — 
he came to love life and fear death more abundantly. 
The progressive evolution of mankind required the ex- 
istence of both instinctive and conscious love of life 
and fear of death. Thus the love of life and the fear 
of death became closely associated states of brain 
matter. It is noteworthy that there exists much differ- 
ence in individuals respecting both the love of life 
and the fear of death. Those in whom these forms of 
love and fear are strong, or even of average strength, 
rarely commit suicide, because they are sustained by 
such influences amid all manner of adversity and 
suffering. They repel the suicidal mania, if not other 
forms of mental disturbance. A weakness of love of 
life lessens the fear of death and precludes much con- 



180 IMMORTALITY 

cern about immortality, and, under depressing influ- 
ences, encourages self-destruction of the individual. 

The egoism of man has accentuated rather than re- 
tarded the belief in immortality. Many persons believe 
in immortality because they feel that the compensations 
of this life do not balance the sufferings and sorrows 
of human existence ; that the righteous must suffer, just 
like the wicked, and that very frequently the wicked es- 
cape much that falls upon the righteous and that, there- 
fore, there must be continued existence for mortals in 
some form or other beyond the grave, where there will 
be a balancing of accounts, where the ills of this life 
will be no more. This feeling comes quite naturally. 
But mere feeling that this or that belief must be true 
does not establish the evidential validity of belief. As- 
sociated with man's enlarged estimate of his importance 
is the very potent element of human selfishness, which 
is as strongly manifested in religion as in other affairs 
of life. 

The belief in immortality, like many other beliefs 
devoid of basic evidence, affords latitude for what may 
be termed correlated conjectures respecting the char- 
acter of existence awaiting the individual beyond the 
woes and joys of the present life. Relative conditions, 
altogether resulting from natural processes, and alike 
real to all mankind, exist here and now. The happi- 
ness and misery experienced are the resultants of the 
conditions noted. Without unhappiness, happiness 
could not be appreciated. Without happiness, unhappi- 
ness would not be recognized. To imagine a state of 
eternal happiness leads to further imagining as to how 
the monotony of eternal sameness could be enjoyed, or 
even endured. What earthly enjoyment is there that, 
if continued beyond a limited period of time, does not 
become wearisome? Do not the successive changes in 
the various activities of existence make life endurable 



IMMORTALITY 181 

here? When thoughtfully considered the belief in im- 
mortality invites numerous questions for which there 
are obviously no solutions. It is very true that mankind 
on earth might well be spared at times a preponderance 
of pain, misery and sorrow, but is it not also true that 
since very much of the pain, misery and sorrow are 
traceable to human ignorance and wickedness, to in- 
adequate information respecting the causes of destroy- 
ing diseases, the application of higher standards of 
morality and advancing scientific knowledge afford 
hope for brighter and better days in the future? And 
is it not also true that the transmission of good and 
benign potencies from individual to individual, and from 
generation to generation immortalize, in a sense at 
least, the influences of the individual who exerts them 
while living here? Why, therefore, indulge in imag- 
ination or mere belief to the point of interfering with 
the fulfillment of the very essential and needful re- 
quirements of present existence — to the point of re- 
tarding the work of alleviating human conditions here 
and now? Notwithstanding these considerations, it is 
a matter of common observation that even those who 
indicate a strong belief in immortality, and confidence 
in the promise of bliss hereafter, manifest the same 
concern for their physical well-being and for the pro- 
longation of their earthly life as do those who rarely 
exhibit any interest in such belief. 

It is of interest to note the attitude of orthodox 
Christians (Catholics and Protestants) toward Spirit- 
ualists — the disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg. The 
Spiritualists are frequently derided because of their "de- 
lusions," "spirit-rappings" and "communications with 
departed spirits." To dispassionate minds, not inclined 
to either orthodoxy or Spiritualism, both appear to be 
equally conjectural and unfounded. Whatever of dif- 
ference exists favors the Spiritualists who at least at- 



182 IMMORTALITY 

tempt to associate some ordinary sense and humane 
feeling with their belief by postulating that the spirit 
of the individual after its departure from the flesh will 
have opportunity for advancement and betterment ; that 
even the wicked will have a chance to advance from 
lower to higher planes in spirit life. Spiritualists affirm 
that right living here constitutes the best preparation 
for advanced spiritual existence hereafter. The ortho- 
dox Christians continue to associate immortality with 
"future rewards and punishments" — heaven for faithful 
believers and hell for the wicked or whomsoever they 
may regard as not fitted for or deserving of the joys of 
heaven. It appears as though, from their conjectural 
view-point, there will be no chance for the wicked and 
unbelieving to escape from punishment hereafter except 
by mending their ways and accepting the saving relig- 
ious creeds now current on earth. Therefore it would 
seem that the Spiritualists are at least mercifully con- 
siderate and not disposed to make the after life for the 
greater portion of humanity one of uninterrupted and 

eternal misery. 

* * * * 

Rationalists neither affirm nor deny immortality. 
They believe that, if there be immortal life for the in* 
dividual, it must be a fact in Nature. They affirm that 
there now exists no valid evidence wherewith to estab- 
lish such fact. They are compelled to aver that the 
findings of science, thus far, entirely fail to support the 
belief in continued human life beyond earthly activities. 
The present conclusion of science is sustained by all 
that is scientifically known of the phenomena of organic 
matter. When the organism itself ceases to exist its 
manifestations of soul, or of life, cease. Though the 
matter that composes the organism — in common with 
all matter — is indestructible and therefore eternal in its 
existence, the phenomenon of individual life is quite 



IMMORTALITY 183 

transitory. It is not, primarily, the task of science to 
encourage or discourage a belief in immortality. It is 
always the task of science to discern factual knowledge 
and organize it and make it accessible to mankind. 
Science will always be quite ready and willing to con- 
sider evidence respecting immortality. Furthermore, 
science has no issue with those who are happier with 
than without such belief. It is their rightful privilege, 
and so long as they do not insist that others shall be- 
lieve as they do, they are strictly within the bounds of , 
propriety. They are not at all obliged to accept Lord 
Byron's view "that we are miserable enough in this life 
without the absurdity of speculating upon another. If 
men are to live, why die at all? And if they die, why 
disturb the sound sleep that knows no waking. * * * 
All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lot- 
tery ticket to a passport in paradise; in which, from de- 
scription, I see nothing very tempting. * * * I see no 
horror in a dreamless sleep." 

* * * * 

Many leaders and devotees of orthodox Christian- 
ity frequently express fear with reference to the effects 
upon humanity of a possible loss of the beliefs in im- 
mortality and a personal God. This fear occasions 
anticipation of calamitous consequences. Their outlook 
upon some waning religious beliefs is not shared by 
those who find themselves impelled by reason of seri- 
ous investigation to maintain that the beliefs in immor- 
tality and a personal God do not constitute the true 
sources of moral incentives and conduct. Moreover, 
the direful consequences anticipated by believers are 
due to the absence of an appreciation of some of the 
hard facts of existence established by experience. The 
highest standards of morality are attained by a clear 
recognition of the natural relationships and the grave 
obligations and duties necessarily arising from those 



184 IMMORTALITY 

relationships. To maintain that beliefs, unsupported 
by the facts of our present and very real existence are 
essential to permanent human goodness and happiness 
is to imply unmistakably the measurement of goodness 
and happiness, or of good and evil, not by the natural 
consequences of efficient natural causes, but by the ac- 
ceptance of popular beliefs having no evidential sup- 
port. The influence of such implication upon humanity 
is disastrous and destructive in character, because it 
substitutes blind faith for evidence and dethrones rea- 
son. James H. Leuba, in his enlightening volume "The 
Belief in God and Immortality," page 323, says: "Our 
alleged essential dependence upon transcendental be- 
liefs is belied by the most common experiences of daily 
life. Who does not feel the absurdity of the opinion 
that the lavish care for a sick child by a mother is given 
because of a belief in God and immortality. Are love of 
father and mother on the part of children, affection and 
serviceableness between brothers and sisters, straight- 
forwardness and truthfulness between business men es- 
sentially dependent upon these beliefs? What sort of 
person would be the father who would announce divine 
punishment or reward in order to obtain the love and 
respect of his children? And if there are business men 
preserved from unrighteousness by the fear of future 
punishment, they are far more numerous who are de- 
terred by the threat of human law. Most of them 
would take their chances with heaven a hundred times 
before they would once with society, or perchance with 
the imperative voice of humanity heard in the con- 
science." Rightful human action finds its determining 
causes in the heredity and rationally moral training of 
the individual. This fact, elucidated by all that is known 
of biology, physiology, and psychology, is either wil- 
fully, or ignorantly overlooked by many of the propa- 
gandists and devotees of some religious beliefs. Once 



IMMORTALITY 185 

this fact becomes truly appreciated and applied, and 
popularized among the masses of mankind, the general 
welfare of the human race will be much more broad- 
ened, elevated, and sustained than is now evidenced by 
the present stage of civilization. 

* #■■;■■* * 

The following lines are excerpted from a lecture on 
immortality delivered by that great genius of human 
thought and expression, Robert G. Ingeresoll who, 
though dead, lives in the grateful memories of many 
thousands of mankind : 

"One world at a time. That is my doctrine. * * * 
Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble 
casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained 
by the everlasting dark will never know the burning 
touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will 
never utter again the broken words of grief. Hearts of 
dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the 
tomb no veiled and sleeping sorrow sits, and in the ray- 
less gloom is crouched no shuddering fear. I would 
rather think of those I have loved and lost, as having 
returned to earth, as having become a part of the ele- 
mental wealth of the world; I would rather think of 
them as gurgling in the stream, floating in the clouds, 
bursting into light upon the shores of other worlds ; 
I would rather think of them as the last visions of a for- 
gotten night than have even the faintest fear that 
their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox 
god. But as for me, I will leave the dead where nature 
leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs in my 
heart I will cherish. I will give it breath of sighs and 
rain of tears." 




EDUCATION 



To prepare us for complete living is the function which 
education has to discharge. — Herbert Spencer. 

In a basic sense the term education denotes the 
training and utilization of the various functions of the 
human organism. True education implies the direction 
of organic activities along such lines as will most ade- 
quately enable the individual to meet the physical, intel- 
lectual, moral and social requirements of existence and 
ensure the well-being, happiness and progress of the 
units of society, and of society as a whole. 

Any form or scheme of education which fails to 
equip the individual with the knowledge required to 
discharge effectively the manifold duties and obliga- 
tions of life may be justly regarded as either false or 
seriously defective. Assuming the further progress of 
humanity, during the present and future centuries, edu- 
cation will ultimately be placed upon a purely scientific 
basis, toward which the most progressive educators 
are now directing their attention. Meanwhile advance- 
ment will be relatively slow, because of the natural 
tenacity of conservative habits of thought, imperfect 
methods and faulty instruction, and the influence of 
fossilized, though popular, theories based upon mere 
assumptions. 

To ring true to all that is best and noblest in hu- 
man nature and to all that relates to the universal wel- 
fare of mankind, education must comprise the acquire- 

186 



EDUCATION 187 

ment of verified knowledge respecting all the known 
phenomena of Nature, the natural relationships existing 
between family units and the units of society, and the 
various intellectual, utilitarian and moral obligations 
arising from those relationships. Furthermore, true 
education must always and everywhere comprehend 
the efficient training of hand and brain for useful and 
helpful service in harmony with the natural inclinations 
and capabilities of the individual, and the vital import- 
ance of the consideration that all needful and legiti- 
mate forms of labor of hand or brain are alike honor- 
able. Much that now passes for education, in a popular 
as well as in a more restricted sense, tends rather to edu- 
cate the usefulness out of the younger portion of man- 
kind than to qualify the oncoming generation to 
best discharge various future obligations and duties. 
Throughout Nature there are no two vegetable and 
animal organisms exactly alike in form, structure and 
characteristics. It follows, therefore, that there must 
be vast room for wide differences between individuals. 
These differences become quite apparent to those who 
endeavor to discern them. Nevertheless, educators are 
prone to proceed with their methods and instructions 
as though their pupils were all about equally endowed 
by Nature to accomplish equally well the multifarious 
kinds of labor necessary to sustain human existence. 
Consequently, where educational methods and the 
character of instruction are not fairly well adapted to 
the natural inclinations and capabilities of the individ- 
ual, a considerable amount of wasted time and energy, 
and of subsequent inefficiency, must inevitably result. 
Thus are the numerous misfits in the complex industrial 
and social life of a nation readily accounted for — in so 
far as educational methods and instruction are con- 
cerned. 

The educational training of pupils in the public 



188 EDUCATION 

schools of the United States should by all means and 
always comprehend not only basic essentials and scien- 
tific methods, but also the application of every effort 
calculated to stimulate free and untrammeled thinking. 
The mere memorization of the contents of text-books 
falls far short of a high standard of school work and en- 
courages imperfect, superficial and incoherent think- 
ing. The first absolute requisite of popular educational 
systems as well as of all other systems of instruction, 
should relate to the fitness of teachers to think clearly, 
to analyze subjects taught, to inspire their pupils to dis- 
cern and consider whys and wherefores and seek veri- 
fied facts and profit by them. Much of that which is at 
present involved in popular education merely com- 
prises memory practices and tests, devoid of reflective 
thinking, because many teachers evidently fail to com- 
prehend the future utilitarian and practical needs of 
those entrusted to their tutorship. Again, true popular 
education is retarded by the constant intrusion of fads, 
fancies, and attractions which cause the loss of valuable 
time. The importance of imparting disciplinary, en- 
lightening and useful knowledge to youthful minds can- 
not be overestimated. Therefore, too much emphasis 
cannot be placed upon thoroughness of instruction in all 
branches of study. Artificialities and all other educa- 
tional rubbish should be discarded. Pupils should be 
encouraged to study assiduously, think accurately, 
and reason clearly, within the limits of their individual 
capacities. 

The facts of science, and the true logic of such 
facts, respecting the various phenomena of Nature, in- 
cluding all vegetable and animal life, and so graded 
from simple to more complex presentations as to make 
them attractive to pupils in various departments, should 
receive serious attention and effort in every public 
school. Since the progress and perpetuity of civiliza- 



EDUCATION 189 

tion absolutely depe.nd upon the intellectual and moral 
education of the masses such education must needs be 
based upon the real and verified facts of human exis- 
tence, upon natural relationship and the obligations as- 
sociated therewith. Many of the duties of life are of a 
serious character because they relate directly and in- 
directly to the advancement of all that must continue 
as highest and best in civilization. The solidarity of so- 
ciety depends upon the discharge of serious obligations 
and duties on the part of the individuals and of 
society. Therefore, at least the necessary preliminary 
knowledge relating to such duties and obligations 
should form a part of public school instruction. Failure 
in this respect can justly be regarded as a grievous re- 
flection upon all who are responsible for the edu- 
cational training of those who must in due course of 
time encounter the inevitable responsibilities of adult 
life. 

The intrusion of purely ecclesiastical assumptions 
in the domain of popular education (supported by public 
funds) has always been and always will be associated 
with dangerous influences — dangerous because they 
are misleading, unreliable, retrogressive, and destruc- 
tive. Any; statement, claim, or opinion that will not 
survive analysis at the bar of rational evidence should 
not be permitted to befuddle and misguide the impres- 
sionable minds of public school pupils. The legitimate 
work of the public schools is of a distinctly intellectual, 
moral and utilitarian character — of a character which 
will most thoroughly educate our boys and girls to be- 
come well informed and useful members of society, thus 
fitting them to sustain the higher standards of citizen- 
ship and civilization. This work requires capable teach- 
ers, scientific methods, uniformity of thoroughly-tested 
text-book standards, and sound and virile moral in- 
struction. 



190 EDUCATION 

Our public schools should never become popular 

centres for parading styles in dress; for the cultivation 

of social fads and extravagances which interfere with 

the accomplishment of genuinely effective school work. 

* * * * 

The considerations previously applied to the edu- 
cational work of the public schools pertain in a larger 
and wider sense to all higher institutions of learning, 
the majority of which continue to be dominated by 
ecclesiastical influences associated with the dogmatic 
and creedal conjectures of supernaturalism. In numer- 
ous instances, largely inclusive of sectarian institutions, 
assumptions entirely unsupported by rational evidence 
are accentuated in one department of instruction, while 
in other departments it continues to be disadvantageous 
to the personal and pecuniary interests of instructors 
to dwell directly upon the inexorable logic of such scien- 
tific facts as may form a part of the curriculum. In fact 
text-books which fail to gloss over such scientific evi- 
dence as might disturb the contentment and assumed 
sureness of theological exponents and their followers, 
are frequently tabooed as dangerously heretical. While, 
in a general way many facts of science, for obvious rea- 
sons, are permitted to be imparted to students, watchful 
concern is exercised lest too much emphasis be placed 
upon the disturbing findings of science. All such at- 
tempts to blend, educationally, facts and conjectures in 
the furtherance of intellectual and disciplinary enlight- 
enment must retard the progress of true education be- 
cause immature minds are either dwarfed or unsettled 
by contradictory elements of instruction, however 
lightly and cursorily some of the elements may be 
treated. 

Educational training respecting rational, mundane, 
verified knowledge if, in part, it is not to be regarded 
as fraudulent, must be stripped of mystifying and be- 



EDUCATION 191 

fogging influences arising from bigoted insistence upon 
the reality of unfounded conjectures. A clear line of 
demarcation must be drawn between facts and truths 
amply supported by scientific evidence and the ground- 
lessness of pure assumptions and hallucinations. In 
other words, students at colleges and universities are 
by nature, and by the constructive sanity of civilization, 
invested with certain moral rights, which include the 
right to protection from the controlling influences of 
superstition and error boldly masquerading in the garb 
of truth and exercised in prostituting factual knowledge 
for the purpose of affording continued support to 
delusive vagaries of the human brain. In this con- 
nection it is in place to observe that the subjection of 
educational training in certain institutions, heavily en- 
dowed by the possessors of great wealth, to the crude 
and fossilized economic and social ideas of so-called 
benefactors of humanity, constitutes one of the blight- 
ing hindrances to the progress of true education. 
Wealth thus bestowed retards the forward, evolution- 
ary strides of genuine advancement and becomes in 
effect subversive of the best and most abiding interests 
of mankind, however much the names of contributing 
benefactors are exalted in popular esteem. 

Inasmuch as true education and its consequent ef- 
fects must denote the dissemination and application of 
scientific knowledge derived from the verified facts of 
human existence, and of all the hereditary and environ- 
mental influences potentially affecting humanity, it ob- 
viously follows that such education must distinctly and 
emphatically relate to the physical, rationally intellect- 
ual, and moral improvement of the individual units of 
society. Upon such improvement depend all the ad- 
vances of humanity toward the highest possible destiny 
of our race. 



GOVERNMENT 

It is not the purpose of this essay to trace the evo- 
lution of government from its rudimentary beginnings 
prior to the earlier civilizations of the human race in 
different parts of the earth, or to endeavor to describe 
various movements of mankind, from family units, 
tribes and clans toward more complex civilizing agen- 
cies, which established such lines of action and conduct 
on the part of individuals as were found by experience 
to be essential to the preservation of life and other 
vital interests of earlier humanity. 

The concluding pages of this volume will be de- 
voted to considerations respecting principles of gov- 
ernment within the United States, to the political sys- 
tem related to the application of those principles, and 
sundry thoughts anent the dangers which threaten the 
perpetuity of a "government of, for, and by the people," 
the chief function of which is the protection of the lives, 
rights and just liberties of the people in whom is 
vested governing power. The theoretical principles of 
what is termed Democracy, practically and efficiently 
applied, obviously require intellectual and moral fitness 
on the part of the people themselves, individually and 
collectively. The people's government necessarily re- 
flects the rational enlightenment and the application 
of the principles of right and justice which characterize 
the lives and actions of the people during any period 
of government. The existing tyrannies of Democracy 
which in their effects frequently approximate the tyr- 
annies of Autocracy are distinctly traceable to the ig- 

192 



GOVERNMENT 193 

norance and indifference of the electorate relating to 
the meaning and import of the term liberty, as well as 
of principles of justice which cannot be largely dis- 
regarded without the entailment of serious conse- 
quences upon the governed. Therefore, in the last an- 
alysis, the permanent success of Democratic govern- 
ment depends upon the adequate fitness of the people 
to govern themselves. To be thus fitted they must 
be qualified to discharge certain essential obligations 
necessarily arising from the very nature of the gov- 
ernment they have adopted. In so far as the theory of 
their government fails of materialization they must look 
to themselves for instrumentalities whereby success 
may be substituted for failure. 

The Federal government centered at Washington 
since the early days of national life, and the govern- 
ing power of the States of the Federation, as well as 
local government, in their operations, gave rise to the 
formation of political parties to express and effectualize 
differences of opinion concerning various branches 
of government, including legislative, executive, judi- 
cial and economic functions. In large measure the 
continued existence of the people's government re- 
quires the maintenance of two or more political parties. 
Such aggregations of the electorate are a necessity, a 
blessing, and a curse. Support of this apparently para- 
doxical statement is embodied in the following observ- 
ations: Political parties are a necessity and a blessing 
because they afford the people avenues for the free ex- 
pression of their convictions and opinions respecting 
the administration of the affairs of their government, 
and because such freedom of expression encourages the 
formulation of diverging opinions, and discussion. Pri- 
vate and public expression of thought promote general 
enlightenment regarding ways and means related to 
policies associated with the discharge of governmental 



194 GOVERNMENT 

functions. Political parties are a curse because they 
afford numerous crafty politicians diverse opportunities 
to advance the purely selfish interests of their parties 
and of themselves, thus diminishing the welfare of the 
people and vitiating public service. One of the exe- 
crable specimens of humanity is the partisan politician 
masquerading as a statesman and practicing in public 
life the delusive tricks and subterfuges of some of the 
ward politicians of misgoverned municipalities. In 
innumerable instances important interests of the people 
have been and continue to be adversely subjected to a 
preponderance of sentiment created by the false claims 
and clamorings of the leaders of political parties and 
their followers. The insistence of rancorous partisan 
politics is a concomitant of American public life that 
frequently and injuriously affects the functionings of 
the people's government. The average American poli- 
tician is a moral coward, made so by political, relig- 
ious and other prejudices arising from the influences of 
craftiness, ignorance and false conceptions regarding 
the principles of Democracy. His ambition to obtain 
political preferment and the emoluments of office con- 
strain him so to adapt his movements and utterances 
that they may receive the impetus of popular currents 
of opinion, however subversive of the public good, or of 
the rightful liberty of individuals. This observation ap- 
plies with especial fitness to members of the legislative 
branches of government. Incompetence and cowardice 
are frequently responsible for the enactment of laws 
of a doubtful or vicious character, while antiquated and 
abominable statutes are neither revised nor repealed 
because of timorous and incompetent lawmakers elect- 
ed to represent the people in legislative halls. Ob- 
viously, remedial power is vested in the people. 

That the governing power, as applied by those 
chosen to administer it, is often diverted into channels 



GOVERNMENT 195 

running counter to the vital and constructive interests 
of the governed is a fact that does not here require 
special elucidation. However, this fact does not im- 
ply the failure in larger part of our system of govern- 
ment. It rather serves to add emphasis to the conclu- 
sion that the extent of wholesome efficiency in the ap- 
plication of governing power inhering in the people 
must be determined by the people, whose fitness to gov- 
ern is yet on trial. 

An apparent fallacy widely current is that the 
power of government should be exercised for the elim- 
ination of human weaknesses, inefficiencies, and nat- 
ural inequalities, and that such power should be sub- 
stituted for individual initiative. The processes of Na- 
ture are fixed and irrevocable. The application of gov- 
ernment for the purpose of freeing the individual from 
the effects of natural causes, or to establish equality 
where no equality exists, is doomed to failure. The 
government which "governs the least" is likely to be 
the most effectual because it does not aim to discharge 
the obligations naturally vested in the individual and 
naturally discharged by the units of society when un- 
trammeled and protected in their legitimate struggles 
for existence and their rightful freedom. The problem 
of human existence, or of how to live well, cannot be 
solved by governmental fiats. The people's govern- 
ment reflects the strength, the weakness, the goodness 
and wickedness of humanity. It cannot perform the 
tasks and discharge the responsibilities naturally im- 
posed upon the people. It can only assist the people by 
protecting them in their just rights and liberties. 

Among the several outstanding weaknesses of the 
people's government is the constant and reprehensible 
utilization of governing power in augmenting the finan- 
cial interests of individuals, corporations and members 
of various organizations, which practically amounts to 



196 GOVERNMENT 

the exercise of arbitrary power in special support of 
both capital and labor, and which must commensurately 
result in banefully retarding the substantial progress 
of the people as a whole. Another of the weaknesses 
is the application of governing power in specially and 
potently furthering the interests of ecclesiasticism by 
authorizing very unjust tax exemptions, thus in effect 
and unconstitutionally supporting unproven claims and 
contentions, not only at the expense of the general pub- 
lic but also to the disadvantage and curtailment of the 
liberty proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence 
and plainly recognized in the Constitution of the United 
States. This prostitution of governing power is most 
unfair and intolerable. It reveals an elementally de- 
structive influence of misgovernment. Considerations 
suggestive in character and relating to the success and 
perpetuity of the people's government follow: 

The scientific instruction of the masses of the peo- 
ple respecting the natural principles of right and justice, 
the individual responsibilities arising therefrom, and 
their application in the administration of all the affairs 
of government. This rational instruction must compre- 
hend moral as well as intellectual enlightenment and 
the elimination of glaring inefficiencies in the prepara- 
tion of the present generation for future citizenship. 
Since honesty, justice and efficiency in the administra- 
tion of the various functions of government are depend- 
ent upon the intellectual and moral status of the people, 
from whom governing power is derived, it is the 
obvious and very serious duty of the Federal govern- 
ment to absolutely require purely moral and civic in- 
struction in every public school in the United States — 
moral instruction to be based upon the universal ex- 
periences of mankind concerning the constructive ef- 
fects of morality and right living, and the desructive 
effects of immorality. It should be a chief function of 



GOVERNMENT 197 

the government to practically encourage through 
proper instruction the elimination of ignorance, the sub- 
stitution of reason for credulity, of justice for injustice, 
of freedom for tyranny, of the patriotism of right and 
truth for the pseudo-patriotism of noise and the irre- 
sponsible gushing of sentimentality. Such instruction 
should also fairly and honestly include the more im- 
portant facts of American history from the beginning 
of the colonial period to date, without in a partial man- 
ner glorifying the heroes of war and bloodshed in the 
utilization of effort that should, in part at least, be de- 
voted to historical recognition of the courageous per- 
formers of the civic duties of worthy citizenship. His- 
torical instruction should be complete, honest and 
truthful, not evasive and apologetic, or purposely un- 
mindful of the parts sustained by all the more promi- 
nent founders of the American Republic. It is a nation- 
al disgrace and an exhibition of flagrant national dis- 
honesty that the gigantic work of Thomas Paine (who 
did more with his pen and influence to prepare the 
colonists for the successful establishment of liberty and 
independence than any other man) continues to receive 
scant recognition in popular American histories taught 
in most sections of the United States, because of the in- 
fluence of ecclesiastical calumniators and stranglers of 
truth and justice. In all public school work there must 
be a thorough, not half-way separation of church and 
state. All theological influence of a supernaturalistic 
character must be restricted to purely theological quar- 
ters and not be permitted to intrude officiously and 
openly, or covertly, its influence upon the affairs of sec- 
ular education. Whether the direction and control of all 
public school effort should be centered in the Federal 
government, or not, is quite a mooted question. But 
respecting adequate instruction in sound morality, true 
patriotism and the honest and faithful presentation of 



198 GOVERNMENT 

all the more important historical facts, the national gov- 
ernment should bear a virile and controlling part; and, 
if need be, give financial support to the states for the 
purpose of encouraging the dissemination of knowledge 
related to pure morality and the absolute requirements 
of true and efficient citizenship. 

A grave danger besetting the institutions of De- 
mocracy is the indifference of the people themselves to 
the vital importance of the liberties they are enjoying, 
and to the moral responsibilities associated therewith. 
Also, to the full and faithTul discharge of the elective 
franchise. This indifference is traced in part to two 
causes: First, haphazard and inefficient instruction in 
patriotism in our public schools and, second, to meagre 
instruction in civic duties and morality. Frequent ref- 
erence is made in popular quarters to the "righteousness 
that exalteth a nation." Unless this high sounding 
phrase is employed to denote the natural virtues of right 
living, the thorough maintenance of high moral stand- 
ards, and the faithful discharge of the responsible duties 
of useful and honorable citizenship, it should be cata- 
pulted into oblivion. The serious needs of humanity 
cannot be met by the use of popular phrases of doubtful 
meaning. 

The final test of Democracy will be the final test 
of the people. The people can survive the test by the 
sufficient acquirement and application of knowledge 
rationally intellectual and moral; by the practical ob- 
servance of the principles of liberty and justice, and by 
eliminating complex and indirect methods of obtaining 
an expression of the political opinions and preferences 
of voters so that electors may be privileged to give ex- 
pression promptly, directly and clearly to their conclu- 
sions regarding all the affairs of government, nation and 
state. The final test also imposes upon all electors the 
duty of casting their ballots at all elections. Those who 



GOVERNMENT 199 

fail to do so within a stated period, and who are without 
reasonable excuse, should be permanently deprived of 
the elective franchise. 

Inasmuch as the power of the people's government 
inheres in the people it must inevitably follow that the 
failure of Democracy will mean the intellectual and 
moral unfitness of the people to govern themselves 
mutually, helpfully and rightfully. Therefore, and final- 
ly, every American citizen in whose veins courses the 
red blood of true manhood and womanhood should 
clearly recognize and faithfully discharge the serious 
duties of citizenship, should discountenance false pa- 
triotism and hold in contempt all traitors to our beloved 
country, to the end that the priceless heritage of liberty 
bequeathed to succeeding generations by our heroic 
and self-sacrificing forefathers shall never be lightly es- 
teemed, and that the "government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people shall not perish from the 
earth." 




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